You don't get to have it both ways. You can't say, on one hand, that Hezbollah are an illegitimate militia that shouldn't be conflated with Lebanon and also that there is some clean distinction between on and off-duty as if they were a real legitimate military.

And especially not when we're literally talking about the pagers carried on their person. Basically by definition, if you are a Hezbollah member carrying a Hezbollah-issued pager on your person, and you get a message, and you actively pick up the device and look at the message - at that very moment you are acting in Hezbollah capacity.