Regardless of these (tenuous) assumptions, if you detonate a thousand small bombs, it seems fair to also assume that some of them might not be on the bodies of their intended targets, but rather outside on the counter by the shower or over by the car keys or something.
So no, I’d say this is a pretty tough sort of operation to justify.
Not sure if you've ever been in the military, but when I was there, if I had left a secure device or my gun somewhere out of sight/reach and someone else got to it, I'd get in a ton of trouble and probably go to prison.
Pagers employ unencrypted communications and (because they are receive-only devices) use a broadcast system to deliver messages to the pager. [0] Israel is publicly very, very friendly with at least one very wealthy Five Eyes country, and may have less-public support from many other wealthy and technologically sophisticated countries. If Israel happened to not have the domestically-developed capability to get a copy of every single page sent in an area of interest, they could ask their good buddies at the NSA, CIA, or other such global intelligence agencies to shunt that information to them in a timely manner.
Given the organization's sophistication, there is absolutely no way that Hezbollah believes that the contents of their pages are secret. The worst-case outcome of a lost pager is that the organization temporarily loses convenient contact to the person at the other end of that pager. While this could potentially be operationally disastrous, it's more like losing your service weapon than it is leaving the plans for D-Day on a public bus.
If your bar for taking action is "there can't even be a chance of hurting a civilian", then your army can't do anything, and your entire civilian populace is slaughtered when it's taken over by the enemy intent on destroying your country.
It's never justified to trigger explosives when you have no idea where said explosives are.
What if the dude if hugging is kid/wife/mom ?
What if he's picking up his kids from school, visiting the local food market, &c.
What if he's driving and end up crashing in a bunch of people walking on the sidewalk
Look at what's going on in Ukraine, if you can't tell a good from a bad shit you have to get your eyes checked. Hitting a column of tank isn't the same as targeting a civilian building
Wars are always bad and there will always be war crimes on all sides, it doesn't mean that everything is equal
Is this supposed to be a gotcha ?
WW2 is the reason we updated the Geneva conventions to protect civilians lol
Hamas / Hezbullah use civilians as human shields for their cause and cry wolf when they are harmed.
If you are a member of a terrorist organisation, someone is probably looking for you or your kind. They want to kill you on sight. Why would you then subject innocents to danger by being close with them while you are also a target?
Do terrorists deserve a "family break" where they are untouchable?
Siding with the losing side at any cost is a terrible heuristic.
If there are civilian / innocent casualties, that is sad, but if the target blends into the public life willingly as a defense mechanism that means it is a risk they are actively willing to take. Send your anger towards them for doing so.
Then they also die/get injured. Being in close contact with a terrorist is a dangerous pass-time, and armies targeting foreign threats need to accept some level of collateral damage. In this case, we have thousands of injured terrorists, with hundreds dead, and an additional fraction of those numbers being non-military targets (civilians). It's certainly unfortunate and unpleasant, but this is an excellent ratio.
There's a little.
That's why countries make agreements such as the Genocide Convention, Geneva Conventions, etc. There are (meant to be) strict consequences for breaking these rules. (I noticed you change your wording from 'rules' to 'morality' - still wrong.) Breaking these rules is why we have the concept of 'war crimes'.
The word 'war' also implies two armies battling, rather than an invasion following occupation. In any case, the Geneva Conventions apply in all armed conflicts.
Since the Geneva convention still exists*, no, it is not "within the norms of war to strike service members when they're not in uniform". See Protocol I.
Targeting off-duty or non-uniformed service members violates both international law and the core moral principles of warfare, as outlined by the Geneva Conventions and other international agreements. Denying this isn't just factually wrong, it's deeply immoral.
* Along with the Principle of Distinction, Proportionality, Non-Combatant Immunity and Civilian Impact, etc.
> This is likely to settle out as one of the most surgical non-infantry attacks in the history of modern warfare,
No, it isn't. There's already reports of murdered children, and people as far away as Syria getting injured. The Iranian ambassador to Beirut was reportedly injured, meaning this could precipitate nuclear war.
> because Israel is involved, 20% of the commentary is about how the people who set it in motion belong in the Hague
No, it isn't. You're literally the only person mentioning the Hague in the whole thread.
But yes, they do. That's where war crimes are prosecuted, and this is a war crime (see above), even if 'just' one of many thousands.
> Think about what that says to people weighing the (correct!) claims that Israel has committed widespread war crimes in its occupation of Gaza.
Huh??
Explain to me, please, how more targeted war crimes excuse completely untargeted war crimes, and war crimes targeted at journalists, aid workers, health workers, teachers, children, families, little old ladies in churches, premature babies, etc.
What I'm saying is that you're setting yourself up to be dismissed as someone who believes "a war crime is when Israel does war".
But, they do, and you're wrong.
You're also moving goalposts. Are you still standing by your statement that war has no rules/morality?
> you're setting yourself up to be dismissed as someone who believes "a war crime is when Israel does war".
Israel set themselves up for that belief, not me.
By doing war crimes. A lot of them. Like this one.
Consider, if you would, that this effort to move the Overton Window on what constitutes war crimes is severely misguided. And you really ought to stop.
Why would Israel fire nuclear weapons at Lebanon and Iran, two non-nuclear states?
edit: Also, can you cite anything to back this claim?
> Targeting off-duty or non-uniformed service members violates both international law and the core moral principles of warfare, as outlined by the Geneva Conventions and other international agreements.
I don't mean just it's in one of the articles of the Geneva Convention I mean where you're making your inference more specifically.
I am more pro-Israel in these conflicts, but you are a military target or you aren't, you don’t leave the military when you remove the uniform, only when you agree to leave the military.
In fact it is a common tactic of Hamas, when it is discovered they have passionately murdered civilians, that they immediately claim that it was an IDF soldier. Such as the case with Shanni Louk
Gets decidedly less muddy with volunteers and officers.
Attempting to pass off as fact that everyone in Israel is a reservist and are therefore legitimate targets is simple disinformation. You already knew that, though. But hey - you had a point to make, right?
This more recent (and accurate?) article based on actual numbers puts it at 69%: https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/politics-and-diplomacy/art...
So, >every other person in Israel has gone through military service. If you compare that to "collateral damage" when killing Hamas' terrorists, shooting rocets blindly is more accurate
I guess for an American comparison it's a bit like attacking all republicans for the actions of the Proud Boys or any other militia.
No one serious disputes that Hezbollah opened a new conflict with Israel in 2023. This is occurring simultaneously with the Hamas-initiated conflict.