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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

#371

Post by neoromantique »

tw04 wrote: post #246
mlyle wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't seen a report of 4000 civilians injured. I have seen a report of 4000 people injured across the two attacks, but presumably some fraction of these are targets. 42 killed, of whom Hezbollah said 12 were civilians (later admitting some of the 12 were fighters). Historical average is about half of the wounded or killed in conflicts to be civilians. < 12/42 would be a relatively "good" ratio.

You didn’t see 4,000 because you didn’t look for it. It’s literally in the wikipedia article linked in the thread you’re responding to with multiple associated citations.

The distinction is /civilians/.

You make an assumption that of the 4000 people wounded /all/ were civilians, which is odd, considering that explosive was in a device given out to Hezbollah members.

Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon

#372

Post by sirfz »

TiredOfLife wrote: post #337
sirfz wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

How is communication devices procured by Hezbollah and directly given by Hezbollah to their own members not a directed attack?

Hezbollah is an organization consisting of civilian infrastructure besides its military wing (political party, media, hospitals/medical centers, schools, banking, etc) . These devices were distributed amongst different personnel of whom nobody knows their military activity and can safely be assumed it's highly likely they're civilians (hence the randomness of this, not targetted at all). Besides the fact that these targets weren't in active duty but rather targeted in their homes, workplaces, and other random whereabouts (supermarkets, playgrounds, etc) again emphasising how random and not targetted any of it is and the danger it imposes on others (physical or psychological) around them. It's just insane.

Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon

#373

Post by tptacek »

ignoramous wrote: post #244
dralley wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Targeted attacks against military/militia leadership is not terrorism - almost by definition. I mean, you're not wrong: the State seeks monopoly on violence; the kind of damages it can inflict, where, when and however it wants. Everyone else is ... a terrorist, and whatever they do is ... terrorism. > communication devices procured by Hezbollah and directly given by Hezbollah Replace "Hezbollah" with "the US Govt"…

The reason foreign military organizations don't routinely target active duty US military generals isn't that they're worried about being dragged into some mostly-fictitious courtroom to answer for their misdeeds. It's that the United States armed forces will very quickly reduce their entire organization, and much of the surrounding area, to its combustion products.

There aren't a lot of opportunities in life you get to use the word "annihilatory"; this is one of them. And in the immortal words of William Munny out of Missouri: "deserve's" got nothing to do with it.

Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon

#374

Post by C6JEsQeQa5fCjE »

richardfeynman wrote: post #194
FireBeyond wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And here you are regurgitating some dissent, blissfully ignorant that Hamas has precisely zero to do with this event.

I am simply pointing out OP's double standard: when it comes to Israel, everything is to be distrusted; when it comes to Israel's enemies, everything is to be believed. I am well-aware of the differences between Hamas and Hezbollah and have studied this conflict for well over two decades.

> when it comes to Israel, everything is to be distrusted

Correct, with a good reason for it. Israelis have been caught lying so many times that now when they make a claim, it is on them to prove that the claim is correct, rather than on others to prove that it is not. Just a few examples off the top of my head include:

- The killing of medical workers in a convoy of ambulances and burying them in shallow graves, then lying about doing it until someone dug the bodies up and found footage confirming that they lied on the phone of one of the buried aid workers. [1]

- The hunting down and killing of World Central Kitchen aid workers via multiple air strikes [2]. This was repeatedly denied by Israelis until too much evidence was stacked up and they settled for "it was a grave mistake".

- The high profile case of killing of Hind Rajab [3] who for a brief period of time was the sole survivor of a tank attack in a shelled vehicle filled with her dead family members. Aid workers were dispatched to rescue here, coordinated with Israelis. Neither the girl nor the aid workers were ever seen alive after that. Israelis repeatedly insisted that there were no troops in the area, until too much evidence was stacked again.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/04/world/middleeast/gaza-isr...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Central_Kitchen_aid_conv...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Hind_Rajab

Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon

#375

Post by dang »

hearsathought wrote: post #305
stevekemp wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no useful discussion to be had on such topics as war in Isreal, Donald Trump (be it "stolen elections", or foreign politics), or Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Nobody will ever think "That was a well-reasoned argument I now believe war crimes were, or were not, committed". The best thing to do on posts like this is avoid reading them, or flag them. It feels like there's an obviously correct side to most of t…

> It feels like there's an obviously correct side to most of these issues, the problem is half the audience here believes their side is correct and yours is wrong. You think half the audience here or anywhere is on the side of israel and genocide? The only reason no discussion can be had is because of the influence of israel in tech, media, government and the bot farms they are allowed to employ all over social media…

I don't know what the numbers are, nor is it possible to determine this from the data we have, but I am reasonably sure that most of the commenters who post about this to HN are doing so in good faith. That doesn't make it any less tough to discuss (or to moderate the discussion). If anything, it makes it tougher.

Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon

#376

Post by abdelhousni »

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.

[flagged]

Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon

#377

Post by tptacek »

sirfz wrote: post #372
TiredOfLife wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is communication devices procured by Hezbollah and directly given by Hezbollah to their own members not a directed attack?

Hezbollah is an organization consisting of civilian infrastructure besides its military wing (political party, media, hospitals/medical centers, schools, banking, etc) . These devices were distributed amongst different personnel of whom nobody knows their military activity and can safely be assumed it's highly likely they're civilians (hence the randomness of this, not targetted at all). Besides the fact that these t…

The pagers had strictly military use.

Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon

#378

Post by tptacek »

viccis wrote: post #345
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.

Did it only focus on Hezbollah military officials? Hezbollah is a political party. This is like package bombing US congressmen, Presidential cabinet members, etc. Which would be considered a terrorist attack obviously (and was when Israel sent our politicians, including our President, mailbombs shortly after WW2)

It's technically and sort of a political party. It's also an occupying military force in Lebanon; it is foremost an instrument of the IRGC. It's useful to understand that Hezbollah is Shia-supremacist organization, and Shia muslims constitute a minority of the Lebanese population.

Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon

#379

Post by LightBug1 »

dlubarov wrote: post #343
LightBug1 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The latitude you wankers expect is absolutely incredible ... talking of impossible standards around "zero collateral damage" after what Israel has done in Gaza et al ...

The topic at hand is a military operation in Lebanon, not Gaza.

[flagged]

Re: Israel used Palantir technologies in pager attack in Lebanon

#380

Post by jack_tripper »

fireflash38 wrote: post #369
jack_tripper wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The Geneva Convention ought to have something to say about how a general may and may not be attacked. Except nobody in power actually gives a damn about the Geneva convention or the "laws of war" being thrown around in this topic. Those laws were made up so that victorious powers can bully smaller countries when they lose a war, but superpower nations themselves don't have to abide by them because there's nobody mor…

There are indeed actors who only respect might. That is not universal. Preaching might is right is also not universal. It is still important to have might even if you aren't in that camp because inevitably you will run into people with that worldview and they cannot be reasoned with without might.

Military might is the thing keeping the USD the world reserve currency instead of the GBP, EUR or Yuan. It's literally the core keeping the US economy and prosperity.

And things don't have to be universal to be true, but just one leader/nation bombing or abusing the shit out of you is all you need to teach you this lesson, and waving the Geneva convention in their face won't help you.

The real world is harsh, unfair and unjust and pieces of paper named after European cities don't change that. A barrel in your hand pointed at them does. The ability to use force is the only thing in history that was guaranteed to change things in your favor.

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