Since the IDF seized the Philadelphi Corridor—the strip of land between Gaza and Egypt—in May, it has uncovered at least 25 tunnels connecting the two territories, including one big enough to drive trucks through. These tunnels are thought to be the main corridor through which Hamas has imported arms and other military supplies. Lior Ben Ari explains that smuggling across this border has gone on since 1982, when Israel returned the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt. But the problem took on new dimensions in 2005, when Israel withdrew from Gaza:

Nearly twenty years ago, a conversation took place between the Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and the Israeli defense minister Shaul Mofaz that outlined a plan for deploying 750 Egyptian police officers along the Philadelphi Corridor within months to prevent arms smuggling. . . . During the talks, Mubarak made it clear to Mofaz that he expected Israel to withdraw from the Gaza Strip, including the Philadelphi Corridor, and that Egypt would handle security issues in the area.

After the conversation, Mofaz noted that the Egyptian activity would also address intelligence against smugglers, their arrests, and operations within Sinai, not just at the border. Even then, Egypt refused any Israeli presence along the narrow strip of land stretching along the border. . . . Only a year after the disengagement, in October 2006, the IDF recognized that the tunnels in southern Gaza had become a serious and central threat. . . .

For months, the Egyptians have said that any Israeli approach to the corridor would be seen as a violation of the peace treaty, but even after the IDF took control of the Rafah crossing in less than a day in early May, Cairo maintained that the peace treaty remained stable.

Yesterday, the beepers used by hundreds of Hizballah operatives were detonated. Noah Rothman puts this ingenious attack in the context of the overall war between Israel and the Iran-backed terrorist group:

[W]hile the disabling of an untold number of Hizballah operatives is remarkable, it’s also ominous. This week, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant told reporters that the hour is nearing when Israeli forces will have to confront Iran’s cat’s-paw in southern Lebanon directly, in order to return the tens of thousands of Israelis who fled their homes along Lebanon’s border under fire and have not yet been able to return. Today’s operation may be a prelude to the next phase of Israel’s defensive war, a dangerous one in which the IDF will face off against an enemy with tens of thousands of fighters and over 150,000 rockets and missiles trained on Israeli cities.

Seth Frantzman, meanwhile, focuses on the specific damage the pager bombings have likely done to Hizballah:

This will put the men in hospital for a period of time. Some of them can go back to serving Hizballah, but they will not have access to one of their hands. These will most likely be their dominant hand, meaning the hand they’d also use to hold the trigger of a rifle or push the button to launch a missile.

Hizballah has already lost around 450 fighters in its eleven-month confrontation with Israel. This is a significant loss for the group. While Hizballah can replace losses, it doesn’t have an endlessly deep [supply of recruits]. This is not only because it has to invest in training and security ahead of recruitment, but also because it draws its recruits from a narrow spectrum of Lebanese society.

The overall challenge for Hizballah is not just replacing wounded and dead fighters. The group will be challenged to . . . roll out some other way to communicate with its men. The use of pagers may seem archaic, but Hizballah apparently chose to use this system because it assumed the network could not be penetrated. . . . It will also now be concerned about the penetration of its operational security. When groups like Hizballah are in chaos, they are more vulnerable to making mistakes.