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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

#891

Post by rldjbpin »

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…

this is very hard to defend considering the lack of consideration for collateral damage.

however as already pointed out, even this happened in one instance, it all depends on which side you are on. being from a country that fought for its independence, we remember those who did the deed as "freedom fighters". during the time, from the "opressor's" point of view, however, they would have been seen as insurgents.

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

#892

Post by ragazzina »

golergka wrote: post #747
scottiebarnes wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be ultra targeted you actually have to know where your target is when your bomb goes off. When you detonate thousands at once, you're simply accepting the civilian casualty risk.

This risk is so low it is ultra targeted. Once again, the usual ratio of civilian casualties to combatant casualties in a modern war, per UN, is 9:1. In Gaza war, this ratio is 1-2:1, so even there, Israel is already producing 5-10 times less civilian casualties. In this case, it's thousands of enemy combatants and (at the most, according to journalists in Lebanon and therefore under Hezbolla power) a couple of dozen…

>Once again, the usual ratio of civilian casualties to combatant casualties in a modern war, per UN, is 9:1.

>it has often been claimed that 90 percent of the victims of modern wars are civilians,[1][2][3][4] repeated in academic publications as recently as 2014.[5] These claims, though widely believed and correct regarding some wars, do not hold up as a generalization across the overwhelming majority of wars

>In Gaza war, this ratio is 1-2:1

>The Palestinian Health Ministry has estimated for most of the conflict that around 70% of the dead are women and children; these numbers have been corroborated by the United Nations and the World Health Organization. [74][75][76]. On the other hand, according to the Israel Defense Forces, an estimated less than 1:1 ratio has been reported [3][4].

I guess it depends on who you are listening to.

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

#893

Post by alephnerd »

charbroiled wrote: post #879
alephnerd wrote: post #600

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Israel and Lebanon are not at war Hezbollah is not Lebanon. Lebanon is not Hezbollah. That said, Hezbollah and Israel have been in active bloody combat against each other since 1985.

Well, there’s been a (tense) ceasefire for nearly the last 20 years, that was eventually broken on October 8 by Hezbollah: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Counci...

> there’s been a (tense) ceasefire for nearly the last 20 years

True, but much of that was spent by Hezbollah fighting in the Syrian Civil War on behalf of Assad (their historical benefactor in Israel).

Now that the civil war is de facto over with Assad in control of most of the country except rump Turkish and de facto Israeli (Jabal al Deize) exclusion zones, Hezbollah returned to antagonizing Israel.

The Israel-Hezbollah conflict was bound to happen even if 10/7 didn't happen.

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

#894

Post by lfxyz »

Terr_ wrote: post #806
abalone wrote: post #634

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the LA Times these devices are “not usually used by fighters, but by ambulance and civil defense crews and administrators affiliated with Hezbollah. The devices are unrestricted and can be sold to anyone, and as such are used by other organizations in areas of poor signal.” [1] There is no question if an enemy set off hundreds of bombs in American ambulances we would recognize it as a mass terrorist atta…

Hold up, that skips over the crucial issue of triggering-logic . It's reasonable to guess that these devices were made to only explode after a very unique code is is received, and/or only when traffic came over a radio channel known to be used by Hezbollah. In contrast, an uninvolved civilian medical doctor buying a booby-trapped pager secondhand shouldn't be at significant risk, since before carrying the pager aroun…

> It's reasonable to guess that these devices were made to only explode after a very unique code is is received, and/or only when traffic came over a radio channel known to be used by Hezbollah.

Why is this a reasonable thing to guess?

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

#895

Post by gryzzly »

danbruc wrote: post #387
robertlagrant wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. Not all violence is terrorism. Not all bad things are terrorism either. But terrorism is always bad. Ukrainians killing Russian soldiers isn't terrorism. Hezbollah trying to kill Israeli civilians is terrorism.

But terrorism is always bad. Suppose some country occupies another country and the occupied country has no proper army to fight back, therefore they resort to methods of unconventional warfare to fight back against the occupation. Would some call this terrorism? Would this qualify as terrorism given some proper definition of the term and objective judgment of the situation? Would it be bad? What if they not only targ…

absolutely. there are plenty of examples of what you described and not all are blowing cafes and buses with civilians

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

#896

Post by gryzzly »

danbruc wrote: post #387
robertlagrant wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. Not all violence is terrorism. Not all bad things are terrorism either. But terrorism is always bad. Ukrainians killing Russian soldiers isn't terrorism. Hezbollah trying to kill Israeli civilians is terrorism.

But terrorism is always bad. Suppose some country occupies another country and the occupied country has no proper army to fight back, therefore they resort to methods of unconventional warfare to fight back against the occupation. Would some call this terrorism? Would this qualify as terrorism given some proper definition of the term and objective judgment of the situation? Would it be bad? What if they not only targ…

some kind of necessity in this case is the death cult of islamism - it should be clear that glorifying martyrdom and calling a suicide bomber a martyr is that type of necessity

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

#897

Post by Terr_ »

lfxyz wrote: post #894
Terr_ wrote: post #806

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hold up, that skips over the crucial issue of triggering-logic . It's reasonable to guess that these devices were made to only explode after a very unique code is is received, and/or only when traffic came over a radio channel known to be used by Hezbollah. In contrast, an uninvolved civilian medical doctor buying a booby-trapped pager secondhand shouldn't be at significant risk, since before carrying the pager aroun…

> It's reasonable to guess that these devices were made to only explode after a very unique code is is received, and/or only when traffic came over a radio channel known to be used by Hezbollah. Why is this a reasonable thing to guess?

Nobody that goes through all that effort of making secret customized electronics and then sneaking them into usage by your foes wants the plan to be ruined because one went off in an uncontrolled/unexpected way, blatantly alerting all the other targets to toss their pagers into a shallow hole.

Even if the engineering makes it's a choice of "all blow up" or "none blow up", they'll also want to have control when that moment happens to be, either to pre-empt discovery and defusal or to coincide with other events and factors.

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

#898

Post by HowardStark »

femto wrote: post #778
gruez wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 b…

From the picture it looked to me like it was more aligned with the DAC, although I double checked and I don't think that any DACs of that size would be in the order of 20-30 grams. Could a discharge be angled like that within the confines of the can?

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

#899

Post by bitcharmer »

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…

Criticism of Israel here on HN will only earn you down votes and flagging. It's not worth it.

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

#900

Post by mandmandam »

sandwichmonger wrote: post #875
mandmandam wrote: post #796

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I don't see how that's "fucking scary" - the idea that only Arabs can be Muslim is itself racist, is it not? It is somewhat understandable why some people associate terrorist attacks with Muslims, as unfortunate as that may be . Not that I'm saying that Muslims commit the most terrorist attacks, it just so happens that the most well known ones in the west happen to have been committed by Islamic extremists. E.g, WTC…

[flagged]
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