Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gifted US President Donald Trump a golden pager during their recent meeting in Washington, a reference to Israel’s sabotage operation that killed 42 people in Lebanon last year.
“That was a great operation”, Trump responded after receiving the macabre gift, as reported by Israel’s Channel 12.
In return, Trump gifted Netanyahu a photo of the two of them from the visit that took place at the White House on Tuesday, with the dedication: “To Bibi, a great leader.”
Over the course of two days in September of last year, thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies allegedly belonging to Hezbollah members exploded, killing dozens of people, including a young child, and maiming at least 4000 others, many of whom were civilians.Â
The attacks caused chaos for Lebanon’s already strained hospitals, with thousands of victims being brought in, many with complicated wounds and injuries.Â
At the time, Netanyahu boasted that he had personally approved the operation several weeks after it happened.
In December, two former Mossad agents revealed on 60 Minutes how Hezbollah was tricked into purchasing thousands of rigged walkie-talkies and pagers, unaware they were made in Israel.Â
Though apologists for Israel praised the attack for attacking Hezbollah with precision, the operation was very likely a war crime due to Israel having no way of knowing who was in possession of the sabotaged devices and where they were at the time of detonation.Â
Writing at the time, Human Rights Watch (HRW) warned that the attack could be a violation of international humanitarian law through its use of pagers as booby traps that could be “associated with normal civilian daily use”.
“The use of an explosive device whose exact location could not be reliably known would be unlawfully indiscriminate… and as a result would strike military targets and civilians without distinction,” Lama Fakih, the Middle East and North Africa director at HRW said.
The sabotage operation was a prelude to a major Israeli attack on Lebanon commencing 23 September, which led to an Israeli invasion of the country’s south. Israel continues to occupy south Lebanon, preventing hundreds of thousands of Lebanese civilians from returning to their homes, with 1.4 million displaced.
The Israeli assault also killed over 4000 Lebanese, as well as destroyed billions of dollars worth of residential areas and civilian infrastructure.Â
