On a routine evening early in September, Nour was at her home in Beirut, snacking on pumpkin seeds and enjoying a Netflix show, when an alarming text abruptly disrupted her calm. The sender was unidentified, shown only as “????? ???”, and the message, written in awkward Arabic, read: “We have enough bullets for everyone who needs them.” Nour, whose real name is hidden for safety reasons, immediately suspected the sender. “Israel,” she asserted, recognizing the aggressive tone. Despite inquiries, the Israeli military offered no comment regarding the message’s origin to WIRED. The timing was tense, as hostilities had recently flared between Israel and Hezbollah, including exchanges of airstrikes and rockets. Nour noted multiple instances of the threatening message on social media but avoided opening the SMS, fearing a cyber trap.
Historically, Lebanon’s citizens are no strangers to receiving messages from Israel. In the early 2000s, automated calls circulated, seeking details about Ron Arad, an Israeli airman missing since the ’80s after his plane was shot down, as reported by Haaretz. During the warfare of 2006, a youthful Nour received a similar call with a message starting with “Dear Lebanese people,” following a bitter conflict that resulted in over 1,000 deaths and displaced 900,000 individuals.
The recent weeks saw renewed violence. Conflict between Israel and Hezbollah has intensified since the onset of the Gaza war, with recent airstrikes targeting Hezbollah in Lebanon being the most severe in years, leading to 558 fatalities in just one day, according to a statement by the country’s health minister, mentioned in a BBC report.
On Wednesday, a rocket was fired towards Tel Aviv by Hezbollah but was intercepted without causing any casualties. In the wake of the attack, Lebanese individuals are increasingly glued to their mobile devices, concerned for the well-being of loved ones, noted Mohamad Najem, who leads SMEX, a digital rights organization in Beirut. He highlighted that such instances erode the sense of security people usually associate with their mobile phones, instilling fear and a sense of vulnerability.
In Israel, civilians are experiencing a similar plight, receiving threatening messages on their phones. These disturbing communications underscore the psychological warfare component of the conflict affecting both sides of the border.
Following these developments, people in Lebanon began to receive warnings through automated calls and texts. One such message warned, “If you are in a building with Hezbollah weapons, stay away from the village until further notice,” a tactic reminiscent of messages sent in Gaza before airstrikes. On a single Monday morning, approximately 80,000 Lebanese received these alerts. Even Lebanon’s minister of communication, Ziad Makary’s office received such a call, with Makary accusing Israel of engaging in psychological warfare.
The exact mechanism of these calls remains uncertain. Although there were rumors that Lebanon’s telecommunications infrastructure might have been compromised, the service provider assured that calls from Israeli numbers are generally blocked.
“Originating caller ID was masked with an international or local number. It is not a hack,” stated the Ogero spokesperson to WIRED. “There has been no breach of the official communications network by the Israelis,” reiterated the office of Lebanon’s telecoms minister, Johnny Corm, on X.
Instead, the calls originated from “friendly countries which we do not have on our blocklist,” claimed Ogero, without specifying which countries. The Israel Defense Forces did not comment on the messages or their means of transmission.
Parties engaged in conflict are required to warn civilians ahead of impending attacks, explained Lama Fakih, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “For warnings to be legally effective, they need to be specific,” she noted. Yet, the messages failed to specify which villages were at risk, causing widespread panic among civilians. By Monday evening, thousands of vehicles clogged the highways as people fled north. “Hezbollah is a secretive organization, making it unclear to nearby residents where weapons are stored,” stated Wadih Al-Asmar, cofounder of the Lebanese Center for Human Rights.
Concurrently, in Israel, residents received alarming messages as well. Late Wednesday night, Aya Yadlin was up in central Israel, texting a friend, when she received a message past midnight on her phone, labeled “OREFAlert.” The message displayed was urgent: “Emergency alert. You must immediately enter the bomb shelter,” followed by a link.
Yadlin was immediately suspicious when she received the text, knowing well from her experience as a lecturer in digital culture at Bar-Ilan University that official notifications wouldn’t come in such a form, especially with a typo in the Hebrew text. After getting another message warning that hackers had completely accessed her devices and advising a factory reset, she promptly blocked the number. Had she not done so, she might have received additional threats like her sister did; the third warning menacingly said in English, “If you want to live, leave. If you want to stay, go to hell.”
The intimidating messages seemed tied to the recent tensions between Israel and Hezbollah, suggested by a cybersecurity professional in Israel who asked to remain anonymous due to the delicate nature of the situation.
