EDITORIAL: Hezbollah pager attacks demonstrate Israel’s brutal acumen

Israel’s strike against Hezbollah is not the most brutal reprisal it has launched against the terrorist outfit to its north, but it is the most extraordinary and possibly the most effective.

Israel has brutalised Hamas since the October 7 attacks. It has pummelled Gaza and its terrorist rulers in a bid to free itself from the threat that has tormented the Jewish nation and its people since its modern inception.

Hamas has been destroyed as an effective fighting force. Hamas has been rightly abandoned by its Arab neighbours who have also failed to help the Palestinian people free themselves from their misguided rulers.

The war in Gaza has not been pretty, nor has it been popular. The West, as exemplified by the outrages of the United Nations once again this week turning on Israel, has grappled with its conscience.

The horror of war, and the bloody consequences of battle, has left otherwise sensible Western nations, including Australia’s Albanese Government, confused.

Too many Western leaders have lost sight of the evil, intentions and practises, of Islamist regimes such as Hamas and Hezbollah, who are not only determined to destroy Israel but want to carve their way into the civilised world.

Tragically, Israel has been left to fight this existential battle on their own. While the US has backed Israel behind the scenes, the Jewish state and its diaspora has felt abandoned by other nations, including ours.

Having tamed Hamas, Israel has now decided to knuckle its other neighbourhood threat in Hezbollah, which rains down rockets daily on Israeli civilians from its Lebanese stronghold.

Israel’s pager and walkie-talkie strikes are the most sensational, precise and devastating moves in modern history.

It has literally crippled Hezbollah in the most confronting way, killing dozens and maiming thousands of fighters and sending a terrifying message to all enemies of Israel who have sponsored and support Islamist terror and who encourage the battle of civilisations with Gaza and the Palestinian people as its front line.

As well as a precise hit on its enemy fighters, it is an astonishing psychological warfare success.

Israel has signalled this week, and in its past year of fighting that it will do whatever it needs to do to survive.

Nowhere is safe for its enemies and Israel will stop at nothing to kill them. The attack demonstrates the technological gulf that exists between Israel and its enemies.

Whereas Hamas, Hezbollah and nuclear-armed Iran have shown they are capable of raining down great and indiscriminate violence, Israel is on another level.

Targeted, discriminate, devastating.

The assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, in his bedroom in Tehran, already had Israel’s enemies on edge.

This attack, in its ruthless genius, will have them terrified.

The message is simple and haunting: leave us alone or face the consequences.