Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Hezbollah hand-held radios detonate across Lebanon, sources say

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

771–780 of 1001 posts

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

#771

Post by nielsbot »

golergka wrote: post #736
datameta wrote: post #703

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether terror is an intended effect or not, Israel is engaging in it. Perhaps in the scheme of things as far as military operations are concerned this is "low" collateral damage. But if 3000+ people were wounded that means potentially tens of thousands experienced the traumatic event of explosives going off in a public space. And hundreds more are mourning family.

[flagged]

> OK, so this conversation is at the stage where killing terrorists is bad

Talking about civilians here. Unless you're saying all Lebanese are terrorists?

> I understand that israeli lives don't count for much in this conversation

Based on...?

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

#772

Post by [deleted] »

shprd wrote: post #621
lelanthran wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Israel and Lebanon are not at war. Maybe not, but the combatants holding those devices were at war, no?

> but the combatants holding those devices were at war, no? The attack wasn't as targeted as you seem to think. It also hit health workers and bystanders. Approx half the casualties are civilians (including children). According to Humans rights watch: https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/09/18/lebanon-exploding-pagers... > Thousands of pagers simultaneously exploded across Lebanon and parts of Syria on September 17, 2024, r…

[deleted]

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

#773

Post by creatonez »

TiredOfLife wrote: post #749
ordinaryradical wrote: post #563

There’s a “live by the sword, die by the sword” reaction that I have to this. I think we expect better of democracies, which is why these kinds of attacks shock us. But it is interesting that we are unsurprised when Lebanon/Hezbollah uses terror tactics but it quickly becomes a news event when Israel responds in kind. Ironic because drone bombings like we did in Afghanistan would probably have a much more terrible co…

>I think we expect better of democracies, which is why these kinds of attacks shock us Israel conducts probably the most precise military action in the history of warfare and people still demand more.

This is easily disprovable.

See pages 10-30 of this report and the associated inline sources - https://www.academia.edu/112967602/Bearing_Witness_to_the_Is...

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

#774

Post by aguaviva »

golergka wrote: post #743
datameta wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since we're bringing other conflicts into this... How come Ukraine is able to put in every effort to avoid civilian death when their opponent deliberately uses cruise and ballistic missiles on residential areas?

Because Ukraine was fighting on it's own territory, not the territory of the enemy. Just today, Ukrainians have blown up the Russian arms silo the size of a small town, and I don't doubt that a lot of Russian civilians have died. There's also been a lot of casualties around Kursk. There's been a lot of civilian casualties in different attacks on Crimea too. Quite a few people died when Ukrainians attacked the Crimea…

Just as Israelis.

Except for the 503,000 living in the West Bank, the 220,000 or so (post-1967) residents of the East Jerusalem, and the 25,000 living in the Golan Heights.

(Counting the Fourth Geneva Convention under the rubric of "laws of war").

In addition all the members of the IDF and settler groups committing war crimes currently in the West Bank and Gaza.

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

#775

Post by nielsbot »

miohtama wrote: post #29
tptacek wrote: post #8

Saying this "further heightened tensions" between Israel and Hezbollah is like saying Jason "further heightened tensions" with the campers at Camp Crystal Lake. Can you imagine what must be like to be a rank-and-file Hezbollah soldier at this point? What the fuck is going to happen tomorrow? I'd throw away my socks.

I know HN is not a place for political commentary, but why Israel would do it now when everyone tries to make them de-escalate?

The escalation is the point. Continuing war keeps Netanyahu and his right-wing cabinet in power. It may also draw the US into the conflict, which would, among other side effects, hurt the Dems chances of winning the presidency in November. (Netanyahu and friends prefer Trump over Harris.)

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

#776

Post by mrkstu »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #701
apelapan wrote: post #622

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not wearing a uniform when you participate in war doesn't make you an illegitimate target, it makes you an illegal combatant.

> it makes you an illegal combatant Technically yes. Unlawful combatant or unprivileged combatant is more accurate. It isn't illegal for a soldier to not wear a uniform. It just means the Geneva Conventions don't apply.

It also means you're the one responsible for the bystander deaths inflicted when its necessary to use unconventional means to target you.

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

#777

Post by TMWNN »

blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #70

[flagged]

>The NYT wrote today that Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon was injured (although this may have been in yesterday’s incident?), which makes it obvious that he works with Hezbollah.

A joke I saw:

"Why did the Iranian ambassador have a Hezbollah pager?"

"Because he left the Hamas pager at home."

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

#778

Post by femto »

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.

Looking at this picture (assuming it's of one of the actual radios):

https://static.independent.co.uk/2024/09/18/17/walkie-talkie...

and a picture of the main board on page 5 of the Icom service manual:

https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/icom-v82-service-manual...

I'd guess the explosives were inside the "VCO can": the metal shielding around the VCO circuit. The picture of the radio shows the radio's metal casing bent away from the PCB, suggesting the blast came from that direction rather than the battery. The VCO can would have air-space inside it and is unlikely to be opened, even by a service tech. There will be an SPI serial bus running from the CPU into the VCO can, to allow programming of the VCO, which could be used as a conduit for a trigger command.

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

#779

Post by lupusreal »

minkles wrote: post #417
lupusreal wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It absolutely does not. The violence will continue with both sides dishing it out and feeling completely justified in doing so because of what was previously done to them.

So what's your solution then? Incidentally it does work. It's just horrible. Nagasaki / Hiroshima are a fine example of forced capitulation. Now I'm not suggesting nuking anyone but the best way this ends, with the lowest future body count is someone wins decisively at this point.

Who said I have a solution? The violence will continue, I just want my country (America) to stop involving itself by providing material/financial/etc support to Israel. I think this is likely to happen once baby boomers are fully aged out of the political process (because the synthesis of christianity and zionism are far less popular with younger generations.) I do not propose a resolution to the conflict but do anticipate America distancing itself from the conflict.
Post reply on HN