Bacik disagrees with Labour councillor on Lebanon pager attacks

A Labour councillor was wrong to say the pager attack in Lebanon was “one of the greatest anti-terrorist strikes ever”, the party’s leader has said.

Dozens of people were killed and thousands were injured in shock electronic device bombings, in which thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah detonated on Tuesday and Wednesday last week.

Civilians were among those killed and injured, including children. Responsibility for the attack has been widely attributed to Israel.

Tanaiste Micheal Martin said he believed the attack was in violation of Geneva Convention rules on indiscriminate attacks.

Later on September 18, Labour councillor for Louth Pio Smith commented on the strikes.

In response to a social media post which alleged that Hezbollah had purchased the devices from a shell company owned by the Israeli State, Mr Smith posted on X: “This definitely is one of the greatest anti-terrorist strikes ever and Hezbollah actually paid Israel in the process.”

At the launch of Labour’s alternative Budget on Friday, party leader Ivana Bacik said she had not seen Mr Smith’s comments.

However, when pressed on whether she agreed with them, she replied: “I don’t.”

Asked by the PA news agency if he still stood by his remarks, Mr Smith said: “I still stand by them, absolutely.”

He added: “That’s the good thing about the Labour Party, you can agree to disagree.”

Mr Smith said he had not been contacted by the party’s head office about the comments.

The councillor received criticism for the post, with one social media user noting that children had died in the explosions.

Mr Smith defended the remarks, citing Hezbollah attacks on Israel and the killing of Irish peacekeeper Sean Rooney in 2022, for which Hezbollah members were accused.

He said: “There was a number of other people who agreed with me. So I mean, that’s just the nature of social media.

“I mean my point of view is Hezbollah is a terrorist organisation. You know, they recently murdered an Irish soldier and they attack Israel on a daily basis and they have displaced up to 100,000 Israelis from the northern section of Israel along the border with the Lebanon.

“And, what is Israel supposed to do about that?”

Mr Smith said legal scholars had argued that the strikes were compliant with proportionality under “just war theory”.