A pro-Israel group has appeared to threaten to disrupt and attack Francesca Albanese with a pager attack [Getty]
Betar, an ultra-Zionist pro-Israel extremist group, has “threatened” the UN special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, with a pager attack during her visit to London this week.
In a social media post published on Sunday, the group wrote: “Join us to give Francesca a [pager emoji] in London on Tuesday.” The emoji is believed to reference the infamous pager attacks in Lebanon, which killed at least 37 people and wounded over 2,931 others. The attacks, widely attributed to Israel, were condemned as a war crime under international law.
The exploding pagers were reportedly intended to target Hezbollah fighters, but their indiscriminate nature resulted in widespread civilian casualties and horrific injuries.
Victims often held the pagers close to their faces to inspect the message, increasing the severity of injuries, particularly to the eyes. The attacks caused a sharp rise in Lebanon’s visually impaired population, with many left permanently blind or disfigured.
An image accompanying Betar’s Sunday post read: “Protest: Stop radicalising students” and featured checkboxes listing accusations such as “October 7th denial,” “Hamas support,” and “antisemitic statements”.
Albanese’s visit to London is for a speaking engagement on Tuesday at University College London.
Betar’s post also stated: “There is no place for Jew hate on campus,” a baseless accusation frequently employed to stifle legitimate criticism of Israel’s policies and actions.
The group’s aggressive and inflammatory tactics in silencing critics of Israel’s actions sparked widespread concern online, with many social media users condemning the post as a threat of violence.
“Everybody report this post to safety and flag as a threat of violence which it clearly is,” one person wrote.
Others tagged the UK Metropolitan Police and counter-terrorism authorities on social media platform X, urging an investigation into “incitement to violence”.
Betar typically promotes a hardline nationalist ideology and is known for its aggressive activism. It has ties to right-wing Israeli political movements and reportedly receives funding from pro-Israel organisations and private donors supporting Zionist causes.
In addition to its latest threat against Albanese, the group has a disturbing history of targeting pro-Palestinian voices and activists.
Recent videos posted on social media over the weekend also showed alleged Betar members attempting to disrupt a speaking event by Jewish-American political activist Norman Finkelstein in Washington DC. The footage shows the group waving Israeli flags outside the venue and banging on the windows where the event was held.
Betar has also targeted Palestinian-American activist Nerdeen Kiswani. In an X post, the group wrote: “You hate America, you hate Jews, and we are here and won’t be silent. $1,800 to anyone who hands that jihadi a beeper”, seemingly referencing a pager in a deliberate attempt to intimidate and threaten.
Amnesty International has reiterated that the pager attacks in Lebanon constitute war crimes under international humanitarian law.
The rights group added that Israel could not have known who would ultimately pick up the pagers or who else might be nearby when they detonated, making the attack indiscriminate, unlawful, and brutal.
