Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah said in a speech that was posted to the Spot Shot YouTube channel on February 13, 2024 that Israel does not need human collaborators because people carry cell phones with them wherever they go. He said that Israel taps people's cell phones and monitors their location, conversations, data, images, and families, whether they are at home, at work, or in the car. He said that Israel even knows in which seat in the car a person is riding in, and he called on the "brothers" throughout southern Lebanon to refrain from using cell phones, which he referred to as "lethal collaborators," and to disable or bury them for weeks, months, or however long is necessary in order to protect their security, lives, and honor. He added that people cannot live without their cell phones, but that Islamic law prohibits this during a time of war because it endangers people's lives.
On September 17, 2024, thousands of pagers belonging to Hizbullah operatives throughout Lebanon exploded in what appears to have been a major Israeli sabotage operation against Hizbullah's low-tech communications network that had been adopted several months prior. Several Hizbullah operatives were killed in the attack, and thousands were injured, many of them blinded or otherwise maimed. On the following day, a similar incident took place in which a different kind of Hizbullah communications devices exploded, also killing and injuring a large number of operatives.
Hassan Nasrallah: "The cell phone that we hold in our hands – in your hands, I don't have one... Brothers and sisters, the cell phone is a tapping device. Whenever Israel attacks a target, many people are saying: 'There are collaborators... You should look for the collaborators...' But Israel does not need collaborators to begin with. I swear to you.
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"You have a tapping device in your pocket, and in the pockets of your son, daughter, and wife. You have it with you at home, at work, and in the car. Through this cell phone, they can hear what you say. They download everything you have on your cell phone – the conversations, the messages, and the images, and they can pinpoint your location. They can tell in which room you are, and if you are in your car, they can tell if you are in the front or the back, left or right. Do the Israelis need anything else? We are providing all this for them. Therefore, we have asked – and I am asking now again – that our brothers in the villages at the border, at the front, and maybe even throughout southern Lebanon, at this point in time... Especially the fighters and their families should refrain from using cell phones. Disable it, bury it, lock it in a metal box. Keep it there for a week, two weeks, a month... God knows how long this will last. Do this in order to protect the people's security, lives, and honor. These are the collaborators. You're asking where the collaborators are? The cell phones you, your wife, and your children hold are the collaborators. The cell phone is a lethal collaborator.
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"Most of the [targeting] cases are the result of the use of cell phones. We are taking internal measures, but the cell phones have become like oxygen for people. As if people cannot live and breathe without it. People know that this a tapping device, and that they can hear what you say, what your wife says, what is happening at home and at work – but they still keep their cell phones. This is not permissible in Islamic law, at least at a time of war, fighting, and threats, when this endangers the lives of others."
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