Hezbollah in Lebanon called on residents to beware of Israel hacking phones and surveillance cameras (Getty)

Beirut -

The military confrontation between Hezbollah and the occupation army reached a new peak, putting Lebanon on the brink of war and exacerbating citizens’ fears, after Israel targeted a building in the southern city of Nabatieh, resulting in the martyrdom of 7 civilians, including women and children and 3 members of the party.

This came after targeting the headquarters of the northern region of the occupation army in the city of Safed in an operation that Hezbollah did not claim, which led to the death of an Israeli female soldier and the injury of 8 other soldiers.

The Israeli army said yesterday, Thursday, that the air strike - which it launched on Nabatieh - resulted in the killing of a senior commander in Hezbollah's "Radwan" force, his deputy, and a third fighter. It added that the commander, Ali Muhammad al-Debs, and his deputy, Hassan Ibrahim Issa, were among 7 names named by the party.

Violations

While the residents of Nabatieh grieved for their martyrs, the Lebanese did not comprehend the horror of the massacre and the dangerous development it indicated. The people of the south wonder about the reasons for Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah calling on them not to use cell phones “because they represent Israel’s biggest agent.”

In its statements, the party previously called on the people of southern Lebanon to beware of Israel hacking phones and surveillance cameras to launch its raids and carry out assassinations. But this is the first time that Nasrallah has warned - personally - with such clarity.

In his last speech, last Tuesday, he said that the people of the south “should not respond to threatening Israeli communications, and the necessity of disconnecting surveillance cameras from the Internet and turning them off,” and called for not using cell phones, which made the occupation “no need for agents.”

In the past months, Lebanon has been filled with testimonies from southern citizens who say that they received calls from Lebanese phone numbers warning them that their villages and homes were being targeted, and inquiring about information about their whereabouts, only to discover that they were of Israeli origin.

Experts spoke at the time about Israel's use of Lebanese landline numbers and its penetration of cellular and landline communications data and everything connected to the Internet, including surveillance cameras, which made it easier for it to strike many targets accurately and assassinate Hezbollah field commanders.

Al Jazeera Net information indicates that the Lebanese security services are investigating the case, especially after complaints from hundreds of Lebanese in the south that they received suspicious communications, some of which were from people impersonating official employees, to conduct studies, statistics, and monitor damage.

An Israeli air strike on the village of Kafr Tabnit, south Lebanon (French)

Cyber ​​war

Experts place these violations within the framework of the occupation's cyber warfare and its technical and logistical superiority. Abed Qataya, content director at SMEX, a digital rights organization, says that Israel has the ability to collect data from various communication networks and digital content, especially with its use of artificial intelligence techniques to analyze data such as names, residential addresses, phone numbers, surveillance cameras, and everything connected to the Internet.

Qataya adds - to Al Jazeera Net - that Israel possesses the "highest and smartest" technologies in the world for espionage, which are tools that it supports by eavesdropping on data and phone signals even without penetrating the network via radars, in addition to planting spyware inside phones such as the "Pegasus" program.

The same speaker believes that what Israel is doing in Lebanon is spying on Internet data by analyzing it, penetrating map and bank applications, and personal information, and monitoring the movement of individuals through their data and movement on the Internet.

He also says, "Disconnecting Internet networks is not a complete solution, and even if citizens use encrypted applications, Israel can spy on them from phone lockers."

Regarding Nasrallah’s call to separate surveillance cameras from phones, Qataya believes that it is a step that may slightly reduce violations because the cameras in Lebanon are not from reliable companies, and most of them are not protected by strong encryption systems.

On the other hand, the same source finds that the call to dispense with phones is impractical for citizens because Israel can spy on phones because they are “sensors.” He explains that the state is legally responsible for providing digital security to people and that individuals are unable to do this task.

Qataya added, “We do not know how long Israel has been penetrating Lebanon’s digital security, but it has certainly been a long time ago, especially since Lebanon suffers from great fragility in its digital security, and does not have a strong data protection system, in addition to the occupation benefiting from many official and open platforms on which the Lebanese people register their data, such as Health, social and electoral data.

Indicators of escalation

Many fear that the confrontation between Hezbollah and Israel will spiral out of control, especially with the faltering negotiations and the blockage of the horizon for a political and military solution in the Gaza Strip, after Nasrallah confirmed that the fate of the Lebanon front was linked to the Gaza war, and emphasized his refusal to discuss any proposals brought by the Western envoys to Beirut regarding the military situation in Lebanon. The borders seek exclusively to protect the security of Israel and the residents of the north.

Meanwhile, the Lebanese government is preparing to submit an urgent complaint to the UN Security Council against Israel, after 11 Lebanese civilians were killed within 24 hours.

On the other hand, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant yesterday threatened to launch an attack on Beirut and said, “We can attack not only 20 and 50 kilometers away, but in Beirut and anywhere.” But he quickly hinted that Israel does not want war with Lebanon, but rather, "We are concerned with reaching a settlement that returns the residents of the north to their homes safely and through the process of negotiating an agreement."

Yesterday, in an initial response to the Nabatieh and Sowana massacres, Hezbollah announced an attack on the Kiryat Shmona settlement with dozens of Katyusha rockets and Falaq rockets.

On the other hand, writer and political analyst Ibrahim Bayram told Al Jazeera Net that the indicators of escalation on the Lebanon front worsened before Nasrallah’s speech “because Israel hinted that the diplomatic deadline for a solution with Lebanon was almost expiring, which prompted it to escalate military.”

It is considered that Israel is taking a risk with its response to Hezbollah's military escalation after the painful strike in Safed. But he believes that things have not gotten out of control and that it is "a major escalation that has come under the umbrella of a comprehensive war, even now, because both parties fear sliding into the abyss."

So what's next? Bayram answers, "As long as the horizon is blocked in Gaza and the mediations fail in favor of launching a large-scale military attack in Rafah, this means that Washington is still biased in supporting Israel by eliminating victory, whatever the cost."

This places the southern Lebanese front facing a dead end and great escalation possibilities that need to be evaluated day by day. Israel's cyber superiority also puts unprecedented pressure on Hezbollah, says the political analyst.

Source: Al Jazeera