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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

#641

Post by Scoundreller »

tptacek wrote: post #30
goldcd wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if you wanted to put 30g of explosive into a device, you wouldn't just want it sat there looking out of place to any curious person with a screw-driver. My guess is that you'd want to put it inside a component like say a LiPo pouch that looks like it belongs there. Half-battery, half-explosive - and maybe hijack the BMS components to also allow it to be triggered.

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, and would have been difficult to detect with simple internal visual inspection.

Obviously the mistake was forgetting to sacrifice a handful of units into a bomb calorimeter.

The joules would have been way off.

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

#642

Post by anthk »

OutOfHere wrote: post #513
orionsbelt wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who is using a pager or walkie talking in 2024? I will admit there was maybe a few bystanders standing too close to a Hezbollah member, but how many non-Hezbollah members do you think really had one of these pagers? Keep in mind Israel also does surveillance and probably tracked where they went. If it turns out a material % of these were owned by civilians, I might agree with you, but I suspect that’s not the case.

Just because you don't know of legitimate uses of a walkie doesn't mean they don't exist. A walkie can work independent of a cell phone network, which makes it uniquely useful for numerous applications. Not everyone can afford a cell phone bill.

For instance, emergencies at the countryside/wilderness. Or Firefighters.

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

#643

Post by thomastjeffery »

kotaKat wrote: post #495
miki123211 wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure you could run an entire household on nothing but Samsung at this point. Phone? Check. Watch? Check. TV? check. Washer? Dryer? Fridge? Dishwasher? All there. Laptop? Well, they at least used to make those, not sure if they still do.

"Someday you will drive your Sony to the sony to pick up some more Sony" https://everything2.com/title/Someday+you+will+drive+your+So...

Why wait? Why drive, even?

Today, you can use an Amazon smart speaker to interface (via an Amazon-produced, Amazon-cloud-hosted voice-command interface) with the Amazon web store to buy an ebook published by Amazon, for you to read on an Amazon tablet, that you bought from the same Amazon web store, that was delivered by Amazon, from an Amazon fulfillment warehouse to your front door.

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

#644

Post by anigbrowl »

pdabbadabba wrote: post #476
JohnMakin wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There's only so much explosive you can fit inside a small handheld device that still needs to function and power itself.

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

#645

Post by HDThoreaun »

helpfulContrib wrote: post #449
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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Re: Hezbollah hand-held radios detonate across Lebanon, sources say

#646

Post by abracadaniel »

newspaper1 wrote: post #611
loeg wrote: post #565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are not booby traps.

According to that definition they are: "booby traps – objects that civilians are likely to be attracted to or are associated with normal civilian daily use"

That would hold true for something like a pay phone, but a personal electronic device, only used by the combatant, would not be associated with civilian use.

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

#647

Post by anigbrowl »

jnwatson wrote: post #371
JohnMakin wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

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.

idk, just bricking the devices or (as originally conjectures when the first reports about this emerged yesterday) causing the battery to heat up and melt would be equally disruptive of communications without turning them into mini-bombs.

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

#648

Post by djohnston »

anigbrowl wrote: post #629
edanm wrote: post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reports say that these devices were specifically part of shipments that went specifically to Hezbollah. Which makes sense - I don't think the US Army is using the same walkies that a random hospital in the US uses, for example.

It's far too early for anyone to know that with certainty. And (for what feels like the nth time), Hezbollah is not just a bunch of guys with weapons, it's the civil administration in large parts of the country. Also if the situation were reversed and Hezbollah carried out an attack like this on the IDF, I really doubt the Israelis would just suck it up and say 'oh well occupational hazard of military life, guess we'…

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

#649

Post by HDThoreaun »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #220
kvgr wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

It is terrorism if the attack is planned in such a way, where innocent people will suffer with very high probability and nothing is done to prevent that.

[flagged]

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

#650

Post by PepperdineG »

rtsil wrote: post #352
stetrain wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The definition of terrorism is controversial and political, so there isn't a hard answer. But I think a general distinction is the targeting of combatants vs civilians. There is a difference between infiltrating military or para-military organizations or operations and intentionally targeting mass casualties of civilians for attention.

I don't know about that. When Al Quaeda attacked the USS Cole, a purely military vessel without a single civilian casualty, the US administration and the entire US military called it an act of terrorrism.

Al Qaeda isn't a nation-state so by definition it falls into terrorism. It's like if Greenpeace sunk a military vessel because the sonar was killing sea life that would be terrorism. It would have some serious side effects if it was OK for private non-governmental actors being able to target militaries and be seen as legitimate in their actions.
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