The exploding device attacks dealt a major but not crippling blow to Hezbollah, analysts say

BEIRUT (AP) — The waves of remotely triggered explosions that hit pagers and walkie-talkies carried by Hezbollah members in grocery stores, on streets and at a funeral procession this week made for an eerie and shocking spectacle.

Analysts said Hezbollah will be able to regroup militarily and find communications workarounds after the attack, but the psychological effects will likely run deep.

The explosions — widely blamed on Israel, which has neither confirmed nor denied involvement — killed at least 37 people, including two children, wounded more than 3,000 and deeply unsettled even Lebanese who have no Hezbollah affiliation.

The detonating devices hit workers in Hezbollah’s civilian institutions, including its health care and media operations, as well as fighters, dealing a blow to the militant group's operations beyond the battlefield. It is not clear how many civilians with no link to Hezbollah were injured.

The attacks also exposed the weaknesses in the low-tech communications system the group had turned to in an attempt to avoid Israeli surveillance of cellphones.

Retired Lebanese army Gen. Elias Hanna described the attacks as the “Pearl Harbor or 9/11 of Hezbollah.”

Mohanad Hage Ali, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Middle East Center think tank who researches Hezbollah, said that because the blasts hit people across the group’s institutions, the attack was “like a sword in the guts of the organization.” Hundreds of people were severely wounded, including many who lost eyes or hands.

“It will require time to heal and replace those who were targeted,” he said.

But Hage Ali and other analysts agreed that the loss of manpower is not a crippling blow. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has said the group’s fighting force numbers more than 100,000, meaning that the attack — as dramatic as it was — would have put only a small percentage of its militants out of commission even if all those wounded and killed were fighters.

Qassim Qassir, a Lebanese analyst close to Hezbollah, said the detonating devices actually struck mostly civilian workers within the group and not military or security officials, which has allowed it to contain the impacts on its war effort.

Hezbollah, which is Lebanon’s strongest armed force, has exchanged fire with Israel’s military almost daily since Oct. 8, the day after a deadly Hamas-led assault in southern Israel triggered a massive Israeli counteroffensive and the ongoing war in Gaza.

Since then, hundreds have been killed in strikes in Lebanon and dozens in Israel, while tens of thousands on each side of the border have been displaced. Hezbollah said its strikes are in support of its ally, Hamas, and that it will halt its attacks if a cease-fire is implemented in Gaza.

Speaking Thursday, Nasrallah acknowledged that the pager and walkie-talkie attacks represented a “severe blow,” but he vowed that the group would emerge stronger than before.

Hezbollah continued to launch rockets over the border Wednesday and Thursday after the pager and walkie-talkie attacks, including one that killed two Israeli soldiers.

The impacts on Hezbollah’s communications network are likely to be more disruptive than the human loss.

“Telecommunications is the nerve of military operations and communications,” said retired Lebanese army Gen. Naji Malaeb, an expert on security affairs. A delay in communication could spell disaster, he said.

In February, Nasrallah warned members not to carry cellphones, which he said could be used to track them and monitor their communications.

But long before that, Hezbollah relied on pagers and its own private fiber-optic landline network to avoid the monitoring of its communications.

The pagers that detonated Tuesday were a new model the group recently began using. It appears that small quantities of explosives had been implanted in the devices at some stage in the manufacturing or shipping process and then remotely detonated.

Hanna said the group might rely more heavily on its landline network — which Israel has attempted to tap into on multiple occasions — going forward, or on even lower-tech solutions such as hand-delivered letters.

“Maybe you have to go back to human communication, the postman,” he said. “This is what is really helping (Hamas leader) Yahya Sinwar not to be targeted” in his hiding spot in Gaza.

Orna Mizrahi, a senior researcher at the Tel Aviv-based think tank Institute for National Security Studies and former intelligence analyst for the Israeli military and prime minister’s office, said losing the ability to communicate through pagers is a “dramatic blow,” but the militant group has other communication methods and will rebuild their communication network.

The bigger damage to Hezbollah was psychological, she said.

“It’s the humiliation of having such an operation, it shows how much the organization is exposed to the Israeli intelligence,” she said.

Amal Saad, a lecturer in politics and international relations at Cardiff University in Wales who researches Hezbollah, said much of the attack's impact was the “demoralization and the fear” it sowed.

“It’s not just a security breach against the military," she said. "Hezbollah’s entire society is going to be extremely concerned because everything is liable now to being hacked and rigged.”

The group will “be rethinking many things now, not just the pagers," Saad said.

Associated Press reporter Melanie Lidman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

Israelis take cover next to a shelter as a siren sounds a warning of incoming rockets fired from Lebanon, in Nahariya, northern Israel, Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner)

Hezbollah members attend the funeral of two of their comrades who were killed on Wednesday when a handheld device exploded, during a funeral procession in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

Hezbollah members carry the coffins of two of their comrades who were killed on Wednesday when a handheld device exploded, during a funeral procession in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

Hezbollah members carry the coffins of two of their comrades who were killed on Wednesday when a handheld device exploded, during a funeral procession in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

People watch the speech of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on a tv screen as they sit in a cafe in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

Women sit in a cemetery as they visit the graves of killed Hezbollah members in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

Hezbollah members mourn over the coffins of two of their comrades who were killed on Wednesday when a handheld device exploded, during a funeral procession in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — N.C. State football player Davin Vann was on the move, tiptoeing his way between obstacles in the Wolfpack's indoor practice facility midway through a game week.

And it had nothing to do with the upcoming visit from Wake Forest.

Instead, he stepped carefully through and over boxes of canned food, stacks of bottled water, shopping bags full of diapers, personal hygiene products and batteries. The defensive end known for chasing down ballcarriers was playing quarterback in a way, leading a donation drive to help victims of Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina and aided by his family's moving company.

The drive — so successful that it has extended to run the rest of the week — is just one example of multiple sports-related efforts seeking to help those affected by the storm that left a shocking trail of devastation through parts of the Carolinas, Georgia and Tennessee.

“That was kind of my mindset going into it, kind of ‘I hope we get enough people to at least help a little bit,’” Vann told The Associated Press. “So yeah, it was way more than I expected.”

The death toll has topped 200 after the Category 4 storm rolled through the southeast last week, with flooding washing out roads to cut off entire communities that lack electricity, water and cellular service. Relief efforts are ongoing through multiple states, and that includes from college and professional sports.

In Charlotte, David Tepper — owner of the NFL’s Carolina Panthers — and his wife Nicole have committed $3 million to relief efforts through their foundation. The NBA’s Charlotte Hornets and the NASCAR racing team owned by retired NBA and North Carolina great Michael Jordan have each committed $1 million toward relief efforts.

Not far away in Concord, the Charlotte Motor Speedway track known for NASCAR races has spent multiple days holding a donation drive and extended that work into Thursday due to strong community response. Closer to the devastation, a parade of trucks carrying donations arrived at the North Wilkesboro Speedway on Thursday.

In eastern Tennessee, Bristol Motor Speedway was designated as a regional disaster relief center, accepting donations.

“Our communities, friends and loved ones are hurting, and we stand ready to assist in any way that we possibly can,” said Jerry Caldwell, the speedway’s president and general manager.

Elsewhere in that state, Eastern Tennessee State University has been collecting donations, sending four vans to a nearby high school being used as a shelter with four truckloads taken to a church in Erwin. The Buccaneers host Chattanooga in football on Saturday with fans asked to bring more supplies with them to donate.

And in Georgia, Augusta National — the home to the famed Masters golf tournament — and the Community Foundation for the Central Savannah River Area has announced a joint $5 million donation to a relief fund assisting the greater Augusta area.

North Carolina State's indoor practice facility and Carter-Finley Stadium share the same parking area as the Lenovo Center, the arena home of the NHL's Carolina Hurricanes in Raleigh. As Vann worked into Wednesday evening helping people unload donations, the Hurricanes held a fundraiser tied to their preseason game against the Nashville Predators and raised roughly $280,000 for Helene relief.

Wolfpack coach Dave Doeren said Vann's mother, Joy Hall, who owns the Cary-based Joyful Movers company that opened in 2006, reached out shortly after the storm. Their plan was to collect supplies to deliver to the Durham Rescue Mission's larger relief efforts.

As Vann sifted through supplies Wednesday evening and greeted donors with a handshake, Hall was there with other family members, working her way through a line of flattened cardboard boxes to prepare them to be packed with donations. Meanwhile, cars kept trickling in, sometimes with supplies stacked high in the backseat.

“I was really thankful to them,” Doeren said Thursday of Vann's family. “It's an uplifting deal that they're doing. And now it's just multiplied into a lot of people being involved in it. And so a lot of our players have been helping, a lot of staff — our recruiting staff, our (operations) staff — a lot of hands on deck loading trucks, people in the community coming in and dropping off things for all the folks that need it.”

Vann's donation drive has already filled six trucks with supplies as of Thursday, with more to come.

“It’s very heartwarming,” Vann said. “I’m very happy to see the community is more than willing to give their time and their money to help the people of western North Carolina, even if they’ve never met them before.”

AP Sports Writers John Raby in West Virginia and Teresa M. Walker in Tennessee contributed to this report.

A makeshift sign in a vehicle window helps direct people arriving at a donation drive led by N.C. State defensive end Davin Vann to collect supplies to help Hurricane Helene victims in western North Carolina, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024 in Raleigh, N.C. (AP Photo/Aaron Beard)

N.C. State defensive end Davin Vann, right, carries donations collected to help Hurricane Helene victims in western North Carolina, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024 in Raleigh, N.C. (AP Photo/Aaron Beard)

N.C. State defensive end Davin Vann works among the donations collected to help Hurricane Helene victims in western North Carolina, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024 in Raleigh, N.C. (AP Photo/Aaron Beard)

N.C. State defensive end Davin Vann and his mother, Joy Hall, work among the donations collected to help Hurricane Helene victims in western North Carolina, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024 in Raleigh, N.C. (AP Photo/Aaron Beard)