One Hezbollah official, speaking on condition of anonymity said the detonation was the group’s “biggest security breach” since the Gaza conflict erupted on 7 October when Hamas launched attacks in southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 people hostage.
Jonathan Panikoff, the US government’s former deputy national intelligence officer on the Middle East, said: “This would easily be the biggest counter-intelligence failure that Hezbollah has had in decades”
The apparent sabotage attack follows months of targeted assassinations by Israel against senior Hezbollah leaders and has ratcheted up tensions between Israel and Hezbollah.
An uneasy calm had prevailed in the past three weeks when both parties had appeared to step back from the brink of a regional war after a limited Hezbollah response in late August to Israel’s assassination of its top military commander, Fuad Shukur, in Beirut.
The attack also threatens to derail efforts by the US to prevent Iran, which backs the Lebanese Shia militia, from retaliating against Israel for the July 2024 bombing in Tehran that killed the Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh.
The US state department spokesperson, Matthew Miller, said it was “too early to say” how it would affect Gaza ceasefire talks Miller told a briefing “the US was not involved and did not know who was responsible”
Hamas described the attack as an “escalation” that would lead to Israel’s defeat.
