Once again: watch any of the videos. The vast majority of them involve anyone standing around the operative walking away just fine. This was a targeted attack.

Some civilians got hurt, but the intent was not to harm them, and that is the point.

> Once again: watch any of the videos

What makes you think that I did not watch them? And why do you think a few videos circulating online are representative of a few thousands explosions?

> Some civilians got hurt, but the intent was not to harm them

What makes „some“ any different than a hundred or a million? How can you be certain of the intent if civilian casualties were/should have been anticipated?

Didn’t mean to imply you hadn’t watched them at all; was simply trying to use them as evidence.

> What makes „some“ any different than a hundred or a million? How can you be certain of the intent if civilian casualties were/should have been anticipated?

The point I’m trying to make is that there was a very small amount of explosive in each device. They could have added more material had they wanted to do more damage.

There were many ways to make this far more damaging, and they could simply have shot rockets or bombs from the air.

This was a targeted attack, focused on the specific users of these devices, who are Hezbollah militants. Bystanders were not intended to be harmed, which makes this, by definition, a discriminate and surgical attack on Hezbollah militants.

I’m not really sure what about that isn’t clear.

The intent is far from proven. I will repeat my comment from another post on HN.

When planning such operation you cannot be certain that:

1. all the devices will land in hands of legitimate targets (e.g. pagers could be used in hospitals by doctors and nurses etc).

2. all those devices will be actually used by targets at the moment of explosion (exploded device could be left at home near family members)

3. there will be no civilians in the range of explosion (even if the range is short, in a crowd people can still be injured or killed).

Because of that civilian casualties should be anticipated at unknown scale. Since Israel pulled the trigger knowing that, it means they deliberately targeted civilians along with legitimate targets.

Their strategic goal was of course to make an impressive hit on Hezbollah. However it is not clear if they really cared about collateral damage or just minimized the weight of the bomb to avoid discovery.

1. Those pagers were purchased by Hezbollah, for Hezbollah. They were distributed by Hezbollah, to Hezbollah. I have extremely little doubt that Israel had intel telling them this, and that these weren’t used by hospitals by doctors and nurses.

2. Of course you can’t guarantee this, but the expectation is that operatives have these devices on them, as it is how they communicate with the rest of Hezbollah. That is a reasonable assumption in the fog of war.

3. Of course you can’t guarantee that. You minimize casualties by making the impact smaller but still meaningful; by using less explosive, but still enough to accomplish the goal.

There are no guarantees in war. Ops fail sometimes. You try to predict collateral damage, which Israel clearly did, by targeting specific devices used by and distributed by Hezbollah, and by using a relatively small amount of explosive.

Both of those things indicate that care was put into minimizing collateral damage. Even if they minimized the amount of explosive to avoid detection, that still accomplished the secondary effect of minimizing damage.

This was as successful a military op as it gets.

> Those pagers were purchased by Hezbollah, for Hezbollah. They were distributed by Hezbollah, to Hezbollah. I have extremely little doubt that Israel had intel telling them this, and that these weren’t used by hospitals by doctors and nurses.

Hezbollah actually runs hospitals and employs doctors and nurses in them, so, "they were purchased by Hezbollah, for Hezbollah" is not, even if one assumes it is true, even remote support for "these weren't used by doctors and nurses".

In addition to being a political party, and having an armed wing, Hezbollah operates a fairly extensive set of social services.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hezbollah_social_services

Fine. The point is that Israel is at war with Hezbollah. Hezbollah operatives were the targets. That is who was targeted and who was hit.

Except Hezbollah combatants are not exclusively "who was hit", and your entire argument that this was reasonably narrowly targeted on legitimate targets and not an indiscriminate attack rested on literally not understanding what Hezbollah is.

"Who was hit" specifically refers to who was the target; who owned those pagers.

I did not misunderstand what Hezbollah was, please. I spent years working intel. I'm well aware that terrorist groups often provide social services to the civilians they claim to protect. In large part, it's how terrorist groups often maintain power.

This attack did not target doctors or nurses. It targeted Hezbollah operatives. Hezbollah is a terrorist organization, and Israel is at war with them. Social services run by Hezbollah were not the target, but if a doctor or nurse happens to be a Hezbollah operative, then they were targeted.

Again: the goal was Hezbollah operatives. If you were a doctor or nurse and unaffiliated with Hezbollah, you were not targeted.

I'm not really sure how to be more clear.

> I did not misunderstand what Hezbollah was, please. I spent years working intel.

So you used juxtaposition of concepts you new were unrelated to create a false impression knowingly, rather than because you failed to understand the nature of the situation, and we are to take the deliberately dishonest propaganda technique as superior to genuine ignorance?

That's a lot of words to say "I discovered one spot in which you misspoke, and that means you must be a deliberate warmongering asshole"

But no matter how many words you use to say that, it will remain untrue.

I did not intend to create a false impression, imply any kind of propaganda, be dishonest, or anything else. Your implication is, frankly, insulting.

My contention is very simple: they targeted Hezbollah operatives, very clearly, and given this particular vulnerability could not really have targeted them any more specifically. These were devices that were owned by and used by Hezbollah operatives, regardless of their role in the organization. Civilians did not use these devices, and the intent was not to harm any civilians.

The end. I'm done playing your games, as I believe I have stated my position very clearly, and at this point you are intentionally missing the point solely to argue some misguided other point about moral relativism.

Have a lovely week.

> 1. Those pagers were purchased by Hezbollah, for Hezbollah. They were distributed by Hezbollah, to Hezbollah. I have extremely little doubt that Israel had intel telling them this, and that these weren’t used by hospitals by doctors and nurses.

Do you have any hard evidence of that? It is absolutely plausible scenario that Hezbollah distributed some of the devices to non-members as part of civil defense plan. In case of the war they may want to have a reliable and authoritative communication channel to civilians.

> Of course you can’t guarantee this, but the expectation is that operatives have these devices on them, as it is how they communicate with the rest of Hezbollah. That is a reasonable assumption in the fog of war.

No, it is not reasonable assumption, on the contrary, and we have seen that. It does look like most of the victims weren’t on duty, so it is reasonable to assume that they won‘t be carrying the device all the time.

> 3. Of course you can’t guarantee that. You minimize casualties by making the impact smaller but still meaningful; by using less explosive, but still enough to accomplish the goal.

Minimize != avoid. They knew that the explosion may harm the wrong person, because they did not take the measures to prevent that (chosen method made it impossible). This is indiscriminate attack by definition.

I think you have either intentionally or unintentionally missed my point, and you're talking past me now. War never has any guarantees. You do the best you can, and you do the best the intel suggests, and you minimize and avoid civilian casualties as best you can.

Israel exploited an opportunity here to strike Hezbollah's communications network and leadership surgically; they did just that. No, there are never any guarantees there will be no collateral damage.

I'm done explaining that, as I think I have been very clear.

You have been very clear in repeating the same argument again and again. I and few other commenters here think it is flawed, because you just assert rather than demonstrate sufficient care about preventing civilian casualties. It is obvious that Israel did target Hezbollah operatives. It is not obvious - and you did not prove that — they were not indiscriminate when triggering the explosions.

By targeting Hezbollah operatives, and by including a small amount of explosive rather than a large amount, triggering the explosions was intended to harm the Hezbollah operatives.

Is your contention that they should have individually confirmed each device was in each owner's pocket before triggering the explosions? That would be both impossible and unreasonable to expect.

(And thank you for engaging in good faith, rather than resorting to ad hominem nonense)

> Is your contention that they should have individually confirmed each device was in each owner's pocket before triggering the explosions? That would be both impossible and unreasonable to expect.

Yes, that would be impossible. This is the exact reason why it shouldn’t have happened. Israel must seek diplomatic solutions to these hostilities instead of testing ethical boundaries of warfare. I have reasons to believe they exist, even if it may seem a long way.

Israel is at war with Hezbollah. I'm all for diplomatic solutions, but that requires both sides to desire one, and Hezbollah has shown no desire. Neither has Israel, but again: Israel is at war.

You don't win a war by not fighting.

By this logic the war can be stopped only by victory. As we know from history diplomacy can work. Israel has an advantage in this war, so they could have started exploring diplomatic solution instead of continuing escalation. Hezbollah has made it clear that their recent strikes are related to operation in Gaza (and it often happens that they use Palestinian cause for strikes). This could be the direction in which Israel should have start looking long ago.

Israel did not start this war with Hezbollah. It is not incumbent on Israel to begin diplomatic talks. Israel is at war.

As the attacker, it is incumbent upon Hezbollah to signal diplomacy.

By the same token, it is incumbent on Russia to signal that they would like to engage diplomatically, not Ukraine. It is entirely clear that Ukraine is willing to engage diplomatically, if and only if Russia retreats and surrenders, as they were the aggressor.

Anyway, I think we’ve both said our piece here, and I understand your position.

I think you need to look at the nature of the attack, the targeted, the design of the weapon, and the intended outcome. These devices were not designed specifically to be lethal (although some were). They were designed to send a message by maiming the targets and to create a distrust of needed comm tech by not just Hezbolah, but by Hamas and the Iranians too. I’m sure the designers of the attack realized that some would be lethal and that some non-targets would be affected. All that went in to the calculation. They decided the strategic and tactical payoff was worth the collateral damage. Welcome to warfare.

> They were designed to send a message by maiming the targets and to create a distrust of needed comm tech

The „distrust“ cannot be seriously considered an objective, only if for short term. Next time they will add extra checks of incoming equipment, add random distribution and rotation of devices and problem will be solved.

> Welcome to warfare

Let’s not normalize it by such talks.

> The „distrust“ cannot be seriously considered an objective, only if for short term. Next time they will add extra checks of incoming equipment, add random distribution and rotation of devices and problem will be solved.

That's not true; for one thing, their communications infrastructure is now completely gone. Organizing is made much more difficult. Moreover, there is no guarantee that this wasn't Israel intending to force Hezbollah to use cellular means or other means of communication that Israel has already tapped/broken, giving Israel yet another advantage.

Also, they don't know if there are other devices that are compromised, so the next days will either be tossing all battery-powered equipment they own or inspecting it all, causing disruption to their plans for battle, which means this was a massive win.

> Let’s not normalize it by such talks.

Hate to break it to you, but war is normal. People have been fighting wars since we've existed on this Earth. It's not fun to talk about, but war is war.

I look forward to one day having real peace on Earth, but we're definitely not there yet.

While it seems few bystanders suffered physical injuries, it's naive imho to think that this won't cause enormously elevated fear among the population at large. 'Koolaid' is still synonymous with mass cult poisoning in the US even though that incident happened ~50 years ago in a different country. Everyone in Lebanon is having nightmares about random electronic devices turning out to be bombs, even though they know that's logically not the case. Just like people in New York feel differently about seeing airliners than they did before 9-11.

Sure, that's true. They would have much worse trauma if these were air-dropped bomb or rocket. As strikes go, this was very surgical; but you're right, war is awful.

You'll never hear me say war is good. It's awful.