"Among those killed is an eight-year-old girl from Bekka Valley, Abiad said, according to Al Jazeera."
This CCTV footage shows one of the devices exploding in a busy supermarket:
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/dozens-hezbollah-m...
Terrorizing your opponents is one thing, but indiscriminately detonating bombs in public spaces is just plain terrorism.
If the child story is true (which is always in question), presumably they were tragically playing with the pager or the like at precisely that time.
However the footage of the attack is overwhelmingly fighting-age males exclusively. As far as military operations go, that is remarkably targeted.
Maybe in the future they'll carry some emotional damage or something, but living in a country de facto in a state of war with a formidable nuclear-power neighbour, while governed by a terrorist organization that indiscriminately fires rockets into civilian areas essentially daily, carries that risk, right? I doubt such an operation was a surprise to anyone.
Just like the Americans decreased the safety of Americans abroad by spending two decades radicalizing the middle east, Israel has decreased the safety of its citizens by always choosing to escalate the violence.
These kinds of comparisons are frankly just nonsense and so devoid of context
that "someone" is an enemy combatant currently fighting a war
if they were wearing a uniform would you stand next to a soldier during an ongoing war?
if you were a soldier would you hide in a group of civilians?
there's a lot of blame to go around and Israel is far from clean, but the Hezbollah members are clearly also putting people in harms way by using them as a shield against attacks like this
I saw that video too and I'm happy the bystanders in that case were unharmed but that was 1/2000 (or 5,000?) explosions. I wouldn't necessarily extrapolate the supermarket video to the other several thousand explosions.
If you believe this tactic was just, then I trust that if Mossad obliterated your child in the process of assassinating an enemy of Israel who happened to be nearby then you would be able to forgive and forget, since it was for the greater good and they tried their best. Even if they were targeting the wrong person, as it sometimes goes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lillehammer_affair
Incidentally when they later killed the actual target of that operation they did so by detonating a 100kg car bomb on a public road, also killing 4 civilians and injuring 16 others.
taking the moral high ground is easy when you are not the one making decisions, and while the lesser of two evils (in your car bomb example) doesn't make sense on a personal level, it does make sense on a macro level
How far back are we willing to go for that? Who evicted whom? When? How many times? In what order?
Indiscriminate attacks are those [0]:
(a) which are not directed at a specific military objective;
(b) which employ a method or means of combat which cannot be directed at a specific military objective; or
(c) which employ a method or means of combat the effects of which cannot be limited as required by international humanitarian law;
and consequently, in each such case, are of a nature to strike military objectives and civilians or civilian objects without distinction.
The fact that the pagers were obtained by Hezbollah to be used for their communications, and consequently could be expected to be exclusively in the possession of combatants means the attack was not indiscriminate.
Causing collateral damage does not make an attack indiscriminate. The standard for permissible collateral damage is that an attack must not cause loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian property, etc. that is excessive in relation to the anticipated concrete and direct military advantage [1].
The fact that it was so specifically targeted, combined with the small size of the explosive charges means collateral damage could be expected to be minor. And the evidence so far suggests that to have been accurate. The death of a single child is tragic, but negligible in comparison to the military advantage gained by thousands of combatants dead or wounded.
[0]: https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v1/rule12
[1]: https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v1/rule14
In your scientistic rationalization using weaselwords like "expected to be exclusive", "the [subjective] standard for permissible..", "a death is [objectively] negligible", and so on, it is rather the case that your explanation is so laden with prejudiced pseudoreasoning that you are blind to it and unwittingly helping to spread ideological misinformation.
A country has a right to defend its citizens. It can go to war to do so. War is horrible and civilians die.
It's funny, everyone on Hacker News at least completed high school in principle. But there's so much brave conservatism that high school education should have infused students with enough critical thinking to make them think about what they're really saying, regardless of how complex or simple their version of words is.
Sadly these sorts of people don't realize (or don't care, end justifies the means and by any means necessary, after all) all they are going to weaken is the already weak consensus on how to make war a little more humane, not weaken Israel.
Wow- the lack of self awareness in your statement is flabbergasting
AFAICT the stock pager models are ~95 grams, and people are suggesting 3-5g of added explosives. If they used RDX, then 3g would be ~5.5 cubic centimeters, which seems like rather a lot to try to squish into a small pager unless the design also replaced the standard battery with a smaller one to make room.
In contrast, a M67 fragmentation grenade uses ~156 grams of explosives.
Basically I'm saying it sounds like the bombs are small enough that it's not quite fair to call them "indiscriminate", especially if the trigger logic involves a Hezbollah radio network that nobody else would be using.
A lot of people seem to think Hezbollah is purely military in nature because of the 'terrorism' label. The organization was founded to respond to Israel's invasion of Lebanon, and while it is a militant organization it also has seats in the Lebanese parliament, engages in a lot of non-military activities, and does not have simple politics - for example, it has condemned Al Qaeda and ISIS for terroristic attacks.
Labels such as 'terrorists' are as often designed to confuse as to inform. Reductionist categorization makes people easy to manipulate.
Regardless of your opinion of the IDF, their flag is clearly a very different vibe
More seriously, quite a few other countries have guns on the flag, reflecting a turbulent recent history. As I mentioned, Hezbollah was formed in response to the invasion and occupation of Lebanon just over 40 years ago, which was not a violence-free event. Let's not even get into swords on flags.
There's a tendency among some people to draw their conclusion first and then summon reasons for it afterwards, reasons which often lack consistency. Our violent history is glorious; theirs is deplorable. Consider, for example, the Irish Republican Army; like Hezbollah, it's considered a terrorist organization by US, UK, and many other jurisdictions. But due to the huge number of Irish American people and the subsidence of that political conflict in the last few decades, lots of Americans think the IRA is cool, while reflexively lumping Hezbollah in with other Islamic groups like Al Qaeda and ISIS.
In short, I think things like 'their flag has a gun on it' are the opposite of helpful or insightful.
I think anyone over the age of 30 probably does.
It's even got the bayonet fixed so there's no confusion about their terrorist intentions.
How does Israel know?
A lot of Israelis, Palestinians, and Lebanese are irreligious. Yet, a lot of Israelis, Palestinians, and Lebanese know people who have been affected by the conflict first hand (either refugees, civilian casualties, or combatant casualties), which makes it difficult to negotiate.
The 1990s-2000s was the last period where some sort of negotiation could succeed, because there was still a large 1st and 1.5 gen Mizrahi and Sephardic community that had some residual feeling for Muslim states, and vice versa. That's how Israel and Morocco, Azerbaijan, and Turkey pre-2012 were able to get their relationship back on track.
At this point, the peace process is dead. Even the secular opposition to Likud and the Kahanists in Israel supports a harsh military response, casualties be damned. Similar story in West Bank, Gaza, and Lebanon.
Any sort of peace process will have to be backed by internal repression for a generation by all participants.
Thus, choice of the optimal time could be influenced by a lot of things:
- knowledge of other Hezbollah imminent action making comms disruption right now of great importance
- recognition that the vulnerability had been discovered and was about to be remediated
- via other "eyes on" prime targets, knowledge that just one or two top leaders were briefly in especially-vulnerable positions (like sleeping alongside their pagers)
- etc
And, there will be a "long tail" of damage to Hezbollah's usual communications practices & trust in devices/suppliers. Some marginal recruits may even be deterred from joining a battle against an opponent which can carry out this sort of attack – though of course, others may be emboldened.
It appears pager use was a solid choice. Even on full supply chain compromise the amount of explosives fitted couldn't kill even 1% of targets. A cellphone would be packed with much larger payloads able to kill much more people. Their failure was the lack of proper inspection before distribution.
But on the other hand. They needed the pagers to work for half a year or more (and still only about 3k/5k seem to have been active). Think about tech-support-but-evil trying to fix one that a boss dropped and discovering the explosives inside
I'm surprised they used it out of such a concept. It is almost heartening, because it suggests no such attack is currently anticipated by Israel.
I agree with the disruption of communication protocols and psychological damage though.
Furthermore, after the Israeli entered Lebanon in 1982, they didn’t fully leave the country until 2000, which is what caused the founding of hezbollah in 1982, and the perception of hezbollah as a resistance movement since then.
Basically the Lebanese see Israel has having attacked then occupied a part of Lebanon for about 20 years, between 1982 and 2000 - this is recent enough for most people to relate to it.
The occupation came as a result of continued attacks. And after Israel left in 2000, more and more attacks happened, culminating in the 2006 war.
The fact remains that if no there were no threats against Israel from Lebanon, there would be nothing for Lebanon to fear from Israel. It's repeatedly sought and made peace with every sovereign country with which is has no ongoing disputes.
(There are, as I understand it, some minor territorial disputes along the border. I'm sure these can be quickly resolved through negotiation, if all parties are serious about it.)
Israel responds by targeting Hezbollah weapons, assets and militants.
That doesn't explain why the average Sunni Lebanese in Beirut would feel like they need to "resist" Israel.
Certainly Israel's invasion of Lebanon in the early 80s affected many inhabitants of Lebanon, not just palestinians.
The average Sunni Muslim in Beirut either remembers, or has family who remembers what happened during the (unprovoked by the Lebanese) Israeli invasion and subsequent occupation. Today, most of the Arab world supports Hamas in the Gaza war, considering that the large number of civilians being killed is essentially mass murder. Mix these two informations, and you will find very little trust towards Israelis. Add today’s attacks and things get even worse.
It’s very easy to destroy trust, and very hard to build it. None of this has to be perfectly logical - it’s not how people work.
(94)Chapter: Fighting against the Jews Sahih al-Bukhari 2926 Book 56, Hadith 139
(Part of Sunni Islam)
Actually they were conceived and rose to prominence in direct response to this rather substantial provocation:
The wounded people need care, medicine, rehab, therapy, and feeding during their recovery.
This occupies significant resources of your enemy.
I’m not commenting on this specific attack, but talking in general.
The effect of this "action" is the same as a bouncing betty. (I assume) The goal is to incapacitate and use resources.
Israel's history is decidedly chequered in this regard, and there have been killings, including quite recently of demonstrators / protestors, and within recent years of journalists, by Israeli forces.
But there are also practices such as "roof knocking" in which an initial nonlethal warning is exploded above a building several minutes prior to a much more destructive strike:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roof_knocking>
Video of a roof-knock strike: <https://xcancel.com/AJEnglish/status/1710690655091990644#m>
The explosion seen doesn't significantly damage the building, that occurs in a later strike, shown as the first set of explosions here:
<https://yewtu.be/watch?v=ZFTK9V_mEjI>
(That clip follows with the initial roof-knock.)
And to be clear, much of Israel's subsequent air and artillery assault on the Gaza strip has been far less surgical, with vast numbers of structures destroyed.
By contrast, both Hamas and Hezbollah make extensive use of highly inaccurate missiles (totally unguided in the case of Hamas, guided though low-ish precision generally for Hezbollah) which are effectively aerial mines, striking randomly largely within civilian areas. This reflects both tactics and available means, so again the picture is complex. As I've written in an earlier comment on this thread, most hats are at best grey in these conflicts, rather than clearly white.
The practice is decidedly impressive, and the video clips show a controlled building demo which compares favourably with teams placing explosives on site, with individual strikes to specific portions of the structure to bring it down. Simply as an exhibition of targeting precision that has its own messaging value.
At the same time, as you say, there are numerous examples of far more capricious use of force as well, and critics of Israeli military practices are legion, least of all within Israel itself and the broader Jewish community outside the country.
Israel have the technical capability to minimise casualties. In practice they've acted at best capriciously, and arguably to maximise them.
Though this differs from many of their counterparties who either kill indiscriminately or target civillians specifically (e.g., 7 Oct 2023; Qassam rockets, which are dumb steel pipes fueled with sugar and fertiliser and tipped with explosives, bus and cafe bombings, etc.).
And yes, Israel has its own history of capricious bombings as well:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_David_Hotel_Bombing> (1946)
Many people strongly condemn Israel's post-7-October-2023 actions within Gaza, and I am among them. Hamas are a legitimate target, the civilian Palestinian population and infrastructure are not.
I'm trying to convey that the situation here is complicated and that all parties behave, at least at times, quite badly. I am not partisan to either Israel or the Palestinians, though I often sympathise generally with their people's relative plights, both of them.
I would guess Israel would have preferred more lethal pagers, but the required amount of explosive simply didn't fit. So the resulting deaths are from the people who got really unlucky, whereas getting wounded was the modal result.
They would have preferred cellphones.
By now. The final value will be higher.
The wound patterns will emerge for the vast majority of victims: arms, hands, eyes and hips ? Time will tell.
The Lebanese army, and the IDF, now suddenly can tell between civilian vs combatant.
Look at this to understand how big part of Lebanon sees Hezbollah https://www.instagram.com/brigitte_gabriel/reel/CyT_RanK1gi/
Even some druze (historically neutral sectl were kidnapped and killed in the Oct 7th events.
Now, for the 1st time in 100 years, every single rival of hizbullah is able to instantly recognize enemies, in the open.
Obe thing im certain of, Israel has managed to reset the board in its conflict with Hezbollah.
The only people that share borders with Israel matter. That is Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt. 2 of those 4 have firm peace agreements in place, and have converging interests to control their extremist interests. Syria has its own issues and a defacto govt ban on extremists. Lebanon just had its entire terror contingent permanently labeled.
If you notice my statement, 3 of the 4 of israel's borders were more or less under acceptable control. Now, Israel has likely managed to reset the board for the 4th and final border.
Again, time will tell if the long term consequences you envision matter in any way. I contend they dont, in comparison to the gains they just made.
So, otside of those Hizbullah zones, its actually not common to see the Hizbullah yellow flags openly displayed. Or a car bumper sticker. It is for good reason. There was a civil war before, and memories run deep.
Absolutely insane. Imagine this many Israeli had been wounder by Hammas attack.
Disgusting move from Israel to keep civilian causalities minimum! This is no excuse for 'collateral damage'
Most modern wars see MORE than 1 civilian death per militant death. This pager bomb was nearly entirely militants.
These bombs went off right in front of civilian population with no regards to children or women.
Close to 3000 wounded. Wounded include children losing limbs.
That seems like an awful lot of explosive power for something that needs to be secretly added to a functional pocket pager without affecting external dimensions or adding perceptible weight.
Cautious skepticism is warranted, given how profitable some parties would find it to make such claims regardless of whether they are true or not.
From The Guardian [1]:
> Eight killed and 2,750 wounded
Was that a clever move if you're killing "only" 8 potential adversaries?
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/sep/17/middle-ea...