Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave President Donald Trump an uncommon present throughout his most up-to-date journey to Washington, D.C., this week — a gold-plated pager.
The current was a nod to the controversial mass attack believed to have been carried out by Israel’s Mossad intelligence company towards Hezbollah Sept. 17, 2024, by which hundreds of pagers, walkie-talkie-like units and radios concurrently exploded throughout Lebanon and Syria round 3:30 p.m.
An announcement from Netanyahu’s workplace to Fox Information Digital mentioned, “The pager symbolizes the prime minister’s resolution that led to a turning level within the conflict and marked the start of Hezbollah’s strategic collapse.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave President Donald Trump a gold-plated pager throughout a go to to the White Home Feb. 6, 2024. (Israeli Authorities Press Workplace)
“This strategic operation displays Israel’s power, technological superiority and tactical ingenuity in confronting its adversaries.”
A picture obtained by Fox Information Digital confirmed the pager mounted to a wood plaque with a message on the gadget that mentioned, “Press with each arms,” accompanied by a double downward arrow signal, the identical message that reportedly showed moments earlier than the units detonated.
The plaque additionally got here with a message to Trump calling him Israel’s “biggest pal and ally.”
The assertion seems to be the primary time Netanyahu’s office has publicly commented on the strike towards the terrorist community in the summertime.
Although the assaults have been meant to focus on Hezbollah terrorists, the explosions additionally injured, maimed and killed civilians, together with a minimum of two youngsters. In whole, the United Nations Workplace of the Excessive Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) reported that 32 individuals have been killed and three,250 others have been injured.
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A symbolic portrait of a younger Lebanese lady who was killed in a lethal pager assault is pictured subsequent to flowers positioned in entrance of the Lebanese embassy in northern Tehran, Iran, Sept. 18, 2024. (Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto by way of Getty Pictures)
U.N. Human Rights specialists condemned the operation and mentioned the indiscriminate nature of the assaults amounted to “conflict crimes.”
“These assaults violate the human proper to life, absent any indication that the victims posed an imminent deadly menace to anybody else on the time,” one professional told the OHCHR. “Such assaults require immediate, unbiased investigation to ascertain the reality and allow accountability for the crime of homicide.”
Regardless of the restricted variety of terrorists killed within the widespread assaults, Israeli officers have championed the operation as a profitable psychological blow to Hezbollah.
Although Israel was instantly suspected of being concerned within the reported years-in-the-making operation, Jerusalem had not formally confirmed its function publicly earlier than.
Nevertheless, by November 2024, Israeli experiences revealed feedback leaked from a Cupboard assembly by which Netanyahu was quoted as saying, “The pager operation and the elimination of [Hezbollah leader Hassan] Nasrallah have been carried out regardless of the opposition of senior officers within the protection institution and people accountable for them within the political echelon.”
President Donald Trump hosts Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the White Home in Washington, D.C., Feb. 4, 2025. (Avi Ohayon (GPO)/Handout/Anadolu by way of Getty Pictures)
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The prime minister’s feedback have been an obvious dig at former Protection Minister Yoav Gallant, who he fired simply weeks previous to the feedback over disagreements concerning the conflict effort against Hamas and Hezbollah.
Neither the White Home nor the U.N. instantly responded to Fox Information Digital’s requests for remark.
Yael Rotem-Kuriel contributed to this report.
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