The Times of Israel is liveblogging Wednesday’s events as they happen.
Sirens sound across north, including Tiberias, due to suspected hostile aircraft
Warning sirens are activated in Tiberias and other communities around the Sea of Galilee, the Upper Galilee and southern Golan Heights due to what the IDF Home Front Command says is the entry of “suspected hostile aircraft” to Israeli skies.
Incoming rocket alerts are also activated in two of the communities.
The sirens are the first to be activated since pagers belonging to Hezbollah operatives exploded across Lebanon yesterday, in an apparent attack that the Lebanese terror group blamed on Israel.
Poll: Most Israelis think politics behind reportedly pending firing of Gallant, appointment of Sa’ar
Over 60 percent of Israelis believe Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s reportedly pending decision to fire Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and replace him with New Hope party chief Gideon Sa’ar is politically motivated, according to a television poll.
Asked whether the move was being done for political considerations or the good of the country, 63 percent of respondents in the Channel 13 news survey say the former and 24% the latter, with the remainder unsure.
In a separate poll from the Kan public broadcaster, 49% of respondents oppose firing Gallant while 26% are in favor, and 54% think it will harm Israel’s security versus 22% who believe axing incumbent the defense minister will improve it.
A fifth of respondents tell Kan they trust Sa’ar, compared to 59% who don’t and 21% who don’t know.
Both polls also forecast that a theoretical right-wing electoral list led by former prime minister Naftali Bennett and Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman would be the largest party if new elections were held.
Senior Lebanese security source: Mossad ‘injected’ explosive material into the pagers
BEIRUT — Israel’s Mossad spy agency planted a small amount of explosives inside 5,000 Taiwan-made pagers ordered by the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah months before Tuesday’s detonations, a senior Lebanese security source and another source tell Reuters.
The plot appears to have been many months in the making, several sources tell Reuters.
The senior Lebanese security source says Hezbollah ordered 5,000 beepers made by Taiwan-based Gold Apollo, which several sources say were brought into the country in the spring.
The senior Lebanese security source identifies a photograph of the model of the pager, an AP924, which like other pagers wirelessly receive and display text messages but cannot make telephone calls.
But the senior Lebanese source says the devices had been modified by Israel’s spy service “at the production level.”
“The Mossad injected a board inside of the device that has explosive material that receives a code. It’s very hard to detect it through any means. Even with any device or scanner,” the source says.
The source says 3,000 of the pagers exploded when a coded message was sent to them, simultaneously activating the explosives.
Israel hid explosives inside batch of pagers that Hezbollah recently ordered — NYT
Israel hid explosive material inside pagers that Hezbollah recently ordered from a Taiwanese company, according to a New York Times report that follows the mass detonation of the beepers.
Citing American and other unidentified officials, the report says the explosives were placed in the made by Gold Apollo before they were delivered to Lebanon, along with a switch so they could be set off remotely.
Two of the officials say the blasts were triggered Tuesday afternoon by a message sent to the pagers that appeared to be from Hezbollah leaders, with the beepers meant to sound for several seconds before detonating.
Over 3,000 pagers were included in the recent order, with the US newspaper reporting some of the devices were given to Hezbollah’s allies in Syria and Iran, while adding that the attack only affected those that were turned on and receiving messages.
It’s unclear when exactly Hezbollah placed the order and received the pagers, but the report notes leader Hassan Nasrallah’s remarks earlier this year instructing members of the Iran-backed group to ditch their cellphones due to concerns of Israeli eavesdropping.