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Hezbollah hand-held radios detonate across Lebanon, sources say

reuters.com

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Re: Hezbollah hand-held radios detonate across Lebanon, sources say

#371

Post by jnwatson »

JohnMakin wrote: post #294
pdabbadabba wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it should not be considered terrorism to the extent that the attack targeted legitimate military targets during a time of war — broadly speaking, combatants and other parts of the organization that affect its ability to wage war. Terrorism, at least least in my view, is an attack that either intentionally targets civilians or is truly indiscriminate, and is aimed at producing political cha age by causing fear…

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As attacks go, this is far more targeted than most dropped bombs.

The purpose is to disable the communication infrastructure. That's a valid military target.

To be clear, I'm not saying this is a good thing. It does seem to fit within the rules of war though.

Re: Hezbollah hand-held radios detonate across Lebanon, sources say

#372

Post by dtornabene »

tptacek wrote: post #213
mrtksn wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly it’s one thing to target operatives it’s another thing to target large number of people when they’re among the civilians. Phone exploding in a market, doesn’t make it OK if the owner of the phone is a militant. With that logic the Hamas terrorist attack last year isn’t a terrorist attack because many of the victims served in the IDF, which illegally occupies their territory. This is getting ridiculous. Israel…

Under International Humanitarian Law it absolutely does make it OK if the owner of the phone is a militant. This is black letter Law of Armed Combat.

Were the children militants? What about hospital staff? And, how do you know who these people are? You don't, but you're all over this thread running cover for a terrorist attack. I've already seen plenty of reporting that many of these targeted people were not, in fact, militants, but simply political members of Hezbollah. Would you be running the same cover if Hezbollah, or Iran had targeted Knesset staff? Disgusting stuff man, truly odious.

Re: Hezbollah hand-held radios detonate across Lebanon, sources say

#373

Post by hackerlight »

lola-hart wrote: post #186
mmastrac wrote: post #116

I guess they are taking a victory lap around yesterday's major embarrassment. I never thought that you could dismantle a terrorist organization so surgically by just booby-trapping comms devices. This will certainly be made into a blockbuster movie in ten years. I'll re-iterate my previous comment on this matter: this is an impressive supply-chain hack with absolutely oversized results, and you gotta hand it to them…

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Mostly terrorists are dead and this killed far less civilians than the alternative ways of waging war (ground invasion or bombing campaign). This is the level of surgical operation that everyone was calling for since Hezbollah declared war on Israel on October 8th, and now that Israel is delivering that level of precision there's still some people complaining, it's unbelievable how naive some people are.

Re: Hezbollah hand-held radios detonate across Lebanon, sources say

#374

Post by edm0nd »

gruez wrote: post #57
tptacek wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that they were extremely well concealed, and would have been difficult to detect with simple internal visual inspection.

>My understanding is that they were extremely well concealed Source? I'm not sure how you can concealed any meaningful amount of PCB/explosive in a pager/radio, unless you're hoping that your target never opens the plastic casing, or doesn't know what the internals are supposed to look like.

the amount of explosives would be about the size of a pencil eraser, easily concealable imo. Reports are that they could have modified the existing batteries and put them inside there.

Re: Hezbollah hand-held radios detonate across Lebanon, sources say

#375

Post by ang_cire »

Eliezer wrote: post #298
newspaper1 wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't be surprised if this went well beyond Lebanon. It's time to start really scrutinizing our tech supply chain. I won't use any Israeli tech going forward.

They didn't compromise anything that looked Israeli, and targeted other companies.

You assume. They've cracked down hard on anti-war protesters inside Israel. It's absolutely not a safe, nor even likely true, assumption that Mossad does not also surveil Israelis.

Re: Hezbollah hand-held radios detonate across Lebanon, sources say

#376

Post by minkles »

maronato wrote: post #353
minkles wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering Hezbollah is a designated terrorist organisation in many countries, this probably should be considered an anti-terrorist operation. The targets are enemy combatants. Also notably, it clearly did not intentionally target civilians, although there may be civilian casualties which is uncharacteristic of a terrorist attack.

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It's how you tell them

> It killed and injured more than 3 thousand people, including children.

That can be rewritten with some academic honesty added if you try.

Re: Hezbollah hand-held radios detonate across Lebanon, sources say

#377

Post by csmpltn »

Hikikomori wrote: post #275
csmpltn wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

[flagged]

Exactly! So if you choose to go to war with Israel the way Hamas and Hezbollah (Lebanon) did, you should also accept the consequences that follow…

For example, get ready to have your entire military coms infrastructure blown up in a cyberattack.

Why are we sitting here debating what’s a war crime and what isn’t, when Hezbollah (a designated guerrilla terrorist organization) deliberately chooses to go into war with Israel, and drag all of Lebanon into it?

Re: Hezbollah hand-held radios detonate across Lebanon, sources say

#378

Post by krick »

spondylosaurus wrote: post #282
ivan_gammel wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn’t look very surgical to me given the civilian casualties and general disregard of what can happen to innocent people. If anything this looks more like a state-sponsored terrorist attack than covert ops with collateral damage.

And very possibly in violation of the Geneva Convention's prohibition of "indiscriminate" attacks: Rule 12. Indiscriminate attacks are those: (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 internation…

Not like they ever really cared for Geneva Conventions and such.

Re: Hezbollah hand-held radios detonate across Lebanon, sources say

#380

Post by borski »

freehorse wrote: post #296
petre wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being linked to Hezbollah carries certain occupational risks.

So if somebody turned the phones of all members of X army (say IDF) into bombs, and exploded them at mass when a lot of them would be off duty with their families, would that be ok? This is what happened here.

During wartime? Yes.

Technically that would be a targeted attack, and if “somebody” were able to pull that off it would be an absolutely massive win for that “somebody.”

I wouldn’t like it, but I certainly could not call that terrorism, as it explicitly targeted militants.

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