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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

#471

Post by [deleted] »

rowanseymour wrote: post #368
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.

I assume by "many countries" you mean the US and its allies? Is that it then? Your definition of "terrorist" is whoever the West designates a terrorist? Ergo Nelson Mandela was a terrorist.

[deleted]

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

#472

Post by Aerroon »

clueless wrote: post #317
geysersam wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting that it wasn't discovered by any bomb sniffing dog in Lebanon. They had thousands of devices. There must be at least a few bomb dogs in Lebanon right?

"According to Sky News Arabia; Mossad was able to Inject a Compound of Pentaerythritol Tetranitrate (PETN) into the Batteries of the New Encrypted Pagers that Hezbollah began using around February, before they even arrived in the Hands of Hezbollah Members, allowing them to Remotely Overheat and Detonate the Lithium Battery within the Device."

If that's true, then does that make electric vehicles into potential car bombs if "the right thing" is injected into the battery?

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

#473

Post by daemonologist »

Interesting that they chose to carry out this attack in two waves - presumably the thinking was that Hezbollah would assume only the pagers were compromised (single source/shipment) and thus increase their use of other communication devices. I suspect some did the opposite as well though (stopped carrying/using any devices).

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

#474

Post by newspaper1 »

afavour wrote: post #315
Arch485 wrote: post #192

I'm genuinely curious: how is this not considered terrorism on Israel's part? (or is it considered terrorism?) From a tactical standpoint, this is very similar, and the only big difference I see is that this is technologically more advanced/more complex than just planting a bomb or something. If it's not terrorism, what is the differentiating factor(s)? *side note: I'm quite sure other western countries have used tac…

Terrorism targets civilian populations. This operation, as described, targets Hezbollah militants. That feels like an oversimplification to me. Some of those devices have surely injured civilians. I think the question is how many. Broadly it's the same question that's plagued Israel's actions since last October: there will always be civilian casualties as a result of military action, but how many is too many?

If a bomb blew up next to me in a grocery store, even if I wasn't injured, I'd consider myself "targeted" and that the people who exploded it were my enemy. Imagine that actually happening while you were at Safeway.

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

#475

Post by beeboobaa3 »

tptacek wrote: post #246
mrtksn wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people are not judges in the international court of justice. The legal technicalities are irrelevant.

I don't know what that is supposed to mean. There are norms of warfare and these attacks fall within them.

[flagged]

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

#476

Post by pdabbadabba »

JohnMakin wrote: post #337
nickff wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like the purpose was to disable enemy combatants, and prevent those combatants from striking Israel; which would be a legitimate and targeted strike. Your phrasing makes it seems like the explosives were targeted at damaging the restaurants and stores (along with, perhaps all the occupants), which would not be a legitimate and targeted strike.

My phrasing says exactly what it says - that this was indiscriminate. Do you think the IDF considered whether civilians would be harmed, or have a good possibility of being harmed? Surely blowing up thousands of devices in a major urban area would fall somewhere under this consideration.

> Do you think the IDF considered whether civilians would be harmed, or have a good possibility of being harmed?

Presumably that would be why they didn't use bigger explosives. Or -- taking a step back -- why they used this tactic rather than dropping bombs from the air.

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

#477

Post by gryzzly »

Arch485 wrote: post #441
gryzzly wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Yes, I am aware. I'm mostly asking why this operation, _in addition to_ what Hezbollah does, is not also considered terrorism. Sounds like the tl;dr is that civilians aren't the primary target, therefore it is not terrorism.

and how did you think about it? were you similarly unsure when coalition of western countries fought with ISIS?

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

#478

Post by viridian »

temac wrote: post #270
rozap wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Israel is not really an ally. They routinely spy on the US, and according the the CIA, spy on us as aggressively as the Chinese and Russians do. During the Cold war, they used intel as a bargaining chip and passed classified material to the Soviets. Their nuclear program was started primarily with stolen radioactive material that they exfiltrated from the US. These stories go on and on and on, and they're just the on…

The USA spies all the time on everybody so by your own def they should be not really an ally of anybody.

I don't think the US is really first tier peer-allies with anyone, all friendly nations are on the spectrum of assets we utilize to cultural vassals that operate as reputationally independent extensions of the American empire.

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

#479

Post by [deleted] »

bawolff wrote: post #433
econner wrote: post #262

It makes me wonder how Israel can achieve something like this while simultaneously not being aware of the Oct 7 attacks.

The same way usa can blow up any country in the world but was blindsided by 9/11. When the element of surprise is involved, the attacker only has to get lucky once,the defender has to be lucky every day.

[deleted]

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

#480

Post by borski »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #464
borski wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is targeted, by definition. Every pager was owned by a Hezbollah member or was about to be. Same with the walkies. That there was collateral damage is unfortunate, but Israel was definitely not indiscriminately targeting civilians, which is what would make it terrorism. This was a surgical strike that happened to have some unfortunate collateral damage. Well within the accepted rules of war.

It was not unfortunate collateral damage in the sense of unknown unknown. Civilian casualties must have been anticipated and nothing has been done to prevent them. It is not „accepted“ rules of war, but normalized disregard of human life.

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.

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