Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gifted President Donald Trump a golden pager mounted on a piece of wood in an homage to the horrific attack on Lebanon in which dozens of people were killed, including children, and thousands injured as a result of spontaneous explosions of pagers that had been rigged by Israeli authorities.
Netanyahu’s office confirmed the gifting of the pager. The pager is mounted on a cross-section of wood, which is attached to a base with a plaque that says, “To President Donald J. Trump, Our greatest friend and greatest ally.”
On the display of the pager, it says, “press with both hands.” Some commentators have suggested that the message is a reference to the way that one must press two buttons on a pager to hear a message, while others have said that it may be alluding to the fact that many people in Lebanon had their limbs blown off by the attack.
The Israeli official also reportedly gave Trump a regular pager during the meeting. Trump reportedly said “that was a great operation” upon receiving the gift, an Israeli official told ABC News.
The gifts are an apparent celebration of the September 17 attack in which thousands of pagers reportedly used by Hezbollah members exploded across Lebanon and in some parts of Syria. The attack killed at least 42 people, including a 9-year-old girl and an 11-year-old boy, and wounded at least 3,500, many with lifelong injuries to their eyes, faces and limbs.
The next day, thousands of walkie talkies exploded in Lebanon, wounding hundreds and killing at least 25.
[twitter: https://x.com/QudsNen/status/1887552590382030905]
At first, Israel declined to take responsibility for the attacks, which marked the beginning of an escalated assault of Lebanon by Israeli forces, with over 3,000 people in Lebanon killed as a result of Israel’s war with Hezbollah. Netanyahu has since said that Israel carried out the attack.
Human rights experts roundly denounced the attack as a war crime, as the nature of the attack meant that thousands of civilians were put in harm’s way by the device explosions.
Netanyahu’s office said in a statement that the gift “symbolizes the Prime Minister’s decision that led to a turnaround in the war and the starting point for breaking the spirit.”
The prime minister gave the gift as part of his visit to the White House, during which he met with Trump and other administration officials to discuss relations between the U.S. and Israel and their joint aggression in the Middle East. During the visit, Trump doubled down on his plan for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and subsequent U.S. occupation — a plan that has been condemned as incitement to commit war crimes.
On Thursday, the last day of Netanyahu’s visit, Trump signed an executive order imposing sanctions on the International Criminal Court, which has put out a warrant for Netanyahu’s arrest over alleged war crimes in Gaza.
The executive order specifically calls out the court for probing Israel’s actions, and places sanctions on people involved in any cases against Israel and their families.
Netanyahu thanked Trump for the order in a statement, saying it will “defend America and Israel from the anti-American and antisemitic corrupt court,” without substantial evidence for either accusation.
The ICC condemned the sanctions. “The ICC condemns the issuance by the US of an Executive Order seeking to impose sanctions on its officials and harm its independent and impartial judicial work,” it said in a statement. “The Court stands firmly by its personnel and pledges to continue providing justice and hope to millions of innocent victims of atrocities across the world, in all Situations before it.”
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