Israeli pager attack was carried out earlier following Hezbollah suspicions

The decision to execute the pager attack, attributed to Israel, was "imposed" following an intelligence breach involving two Hezbollah operatives who discovered the tampered devices, high-level regional intelligence sources told Al-Monitor on Wednesday.

The report states that an "intense debate" erupted within Israel's defense establishment after it became known that the plan had been compromised. 

Initially, Israel's strategy was to use the pagers only in the event of a full-scale war with Hezbollah to gain a strategic advantage. However, the plan was accelerated and executed on Tuesday.

Additionally, three US officials informed Axios' Barak Ravid that the attack was prompted by Israel's increasing concern that Hezbollah might have detected their operation. "It was a use it or lose it moment," one US official remarked.