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Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon

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Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon

#141

Post by jackling »

dralley wrote: post #95
zug_zug wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if it's "legal" or not and by who's laws, but it certainly seems like terrorism to me (i.e. intentionally creating a state of terror). I think if Lebanon found a clever way to assassinate the top 45 military commanders in Israel the same people who are defending this wouldn't be calling it a "Legal act of war".

Targeted attacks against military/militia leadership is not terrorism - almost by definition. If it was just random devices exploding, then sure, that could be considered terrorism. But it wasn't random devices, it was communication devices procured by Hezbollah and directly given by Hezbollah to their own members for their own purposes.

The issue is that Israel has no idea where those pagers were at the time of the attack, civilians were directly hurt by the explosions: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/survivors-of-israels-page...

Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon

#142

Post by [deleted] »

impossiblefork wrote: post #8

I actually consider the pager attack to be legal. There's obviously criticism of it, but I'm fairly sure you're allowed to do this kind of thing by laws of war. Obviously this creates a huge problem for pretty much everyone though, since we can imagine that our ordinary consumer products from all sorts countries could similarly explode if we ended up at war with the manufacturers.

[deleted]

Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon

#144

Post by dralley »

ada1981 wrote: post #135
dralley wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The reports" are that 12 were killed total, not that 12 civilians were killed. Only 2 of the killed were civilians as far as I can tell. Several of those who people on Twitter tried to claim were civilians, including a doctor, were admitted by Hezbollah to be Hezbollah members and given Hezbollah funerals. I've never heard of "42 targets", and given 12 people died total, obviously 42 targets were not killed. You sho…

Incorrect. The reports are 42 total killed, 12 civilians including 2 children. "Operation Grim Beeper" (seriously) on Wikipedia cites these numbers from Lebanese government. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Lebanon_electronic_device...

Fair enough, 12 total only includes the original pager attack, not the subsequent radio one. However, you seem to have made the same mistake. 42 people were killed total, but that does not mean that there were 42 targets.

In any case, if Hezbollah themselves admit that 1500 of their fighters were injured by the attack (according to your own source), it seems extremely dishonest to claim that all 4000 were civilians or that there were only 42 targets.

Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon

#146

Post by aprentic »

impossiblefork wrote: post #8

I actually consider the pager attack to be legal. There's obviously criticism of it, but I'm fairly sure you're allowed to do this kind of thing by laws of war. Obviously this creates a huge problem for pretty much everyone though, since we can imagine that our ordinary consumer products from all sorts countries could similarly explode if we ended up at war with the manufacturers.

Legal or not it makes me afraid of Israeli technology.

I don't want to be part of their collateral damage.

Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon

#147

Post by fabian2k »

tw04 wrote: post #85
bunji wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The intended targets of the exploding papers weren't civilians. Very few actual civilians ended up hurt by the detonations, much fewer than attacks by conventional weapons. It's about as targeted an attack as one can achieve from a distance. As an act of warfare, Israel did a splendid job on this. Thoroughly impressive work.

> Very few actual civilians ended up hurt by the detonations, much fewer than attacks by conventional weapons. The reports are 4,000 wounded and 12 killed unintended targets in order to kill 42 targets. On what planet is that “very few actual civilians”? I think you knew full well before posting that’s a ridiculous claim which is why you did it anonymously.

The numbers you state are from the Lebanese government and Hizbollah. So I don't think we can assume they are accurate. I don't have any better numbers, though.

You specific argument though misuses even those numbers. 42 is the number of people actually killed. I couldn't figure out how many were targeted (how many pagers did explode), but I'd assume the number could be much higher than the number of deaths. Without that number we cannot determine how well targeted this was. I also don't think it is plausible that for every target you injure 100 bystanders. So I would assume the number of targets was at least an order of magnitude higher.

There's also another number from Hizbollah, that 1500 of their people were injured. But no idea it those would be included in the 4000 wounded number.

Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon

#149

Post by wasabi991011 »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #32
apical_dendrite wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not really a "mundane daily object" though. It's a communications device that's issued to people on the Hezbollah private communications network. It's only accessible to non-combatants if they are (1) in the Hezbollah hierarchy in a non-combatant role, or (2) the person with the pager was exercising poor operational security and letting someone else handle their pager.

[flagged]

> So? You aren't off the hook because someone did something unexpected or "was exercising poor operational security."

You might be. If it was Hezbollah's guns that exploded and not their pagers, I would expect most people to agree that you would be "off the hook" if someone else was handling that gun.

Not saying pagers = guns, but it's a spectrum surely.

Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon

#150

Post by AnimalMuppet »

cjbenedikt wrote: post #140
moi2388 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it? Do you have any data on how many of these devices ended up in civilian hands? Afaik they intercepted a shipment for Hamas members only. Do you have more information? How many civilians there even use these pagers instead of mobile phones? Are there any ?

A year on, some Lebanese bystanders hurt in Israel’s pager attack still recovering... Over 3,400 were wounded when devices belonging to Hezbollah members exploded https://www.timesofisrael.com/a-year-on-some-lebanese-bystan...

3,400 bystanders? Or 3,400 mostly-Hezbollah but some bystanders?
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