this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2024
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10-year-old Fatima Jaafar Abdullah was killed in pager explosions in Lebanon.

Israel murders another kid again.

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[–] [email protected] 96 points 2 months ago (36 children)

I get going after your ‘enemy,’ but this is even worse than firing randomly into a crowd of Palestinians. They pushed a button not knowing who would die. This is low, even for them.

I can’t even think of a devil’s advocate argument for this.

[–] feedum_sneedson 75 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (48 children)

I believe the devil's advocate argument would be that, based on Hezbollah's internal communications, the Mossad intercepted a shipment of pagers which were being purchased to replace their (potentially compromised) mobile phones, knowing that these were - in theory - being distributed exclusively to Hezbollah operatives. That would make it the most precise military strike of all time.

Everyone who launches a rocket is accepting the possibility of "collateral damage", but this is surely the most surgical of surgical strikes in history. And yet, yes, they must have accepted the risk of bystander casualties, which just serves to highlight how awful that logic is. It's definitely not worse than randomly firing into a crowd, though.

[–] JWBananas 48 points 2 months ago (3 children)

That would make it the most precise military strike of all time.

Pretty sure that honor still goes to the R9X Slap Chop. The pager explosions, on the other hand, injured thousands.

[–] HappycamperNZ 14 points 2 months ago

Fat electrician had a great video on this.

Soo accurate that if the target is in a car you need to know what seat.

[–] PugJesus 3 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I really don't get it. Other than the "WAOW" factor, this certainly can't have been a good use of resources for Israel.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 months ago (2 children)

They already believed their communications were being intercepted so switched to another method.

That method then literally blew up in their pockets.

The amount of fear and distrust of the supply chain can’t be overstated.

[–] PugJesus 5 points 2 months ago (3 children)

I dunno man. I just feel like if you're at the point where you can clandestinely intercept huge amounts of your enemy's personal communication devices, 'turn them into bombs' feels like a bit of a low-yield outcome.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Alternately this proves that they still are intercepting their communication AND can intervene in their supply chain.

I assure you that basically every nation state in FVEY (and then Israel by proxy) has the ability to intercept your communication.

This is something that ought to be considered as a basic entry level accepted threat.

NOW they know they have to worry about shit blowing up randomly, brand new stuff.

[–] Aqarius 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Consider it backwards: Israel sees this attack happening so valuable, that they were willing to forego using the pagers for spying.

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[–] CoCo_Goldstein 3 points 2 months ago

They thought the pagers were secure communication devices. Now they know they are not. Hezbollah was maybe planning to escalate its attacks on Israel, without good, secure communications, they probably can't. On the flip side, if Israel decides to invade Southern Lebanon to escalate things with Hezbollah, Hezbollah is going to have a much tougher time coordinating its defense since its supposed 'secure' communication system has just been blown up, the previous system (cell phones) what already suspected of being compromised, and now today, walkie-talkies used by the senior Hezbollah leadership have also exploded.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

This is not normal for cyber ops. The only thing really that makes sense is if they needed to buy time so set off the pagers. Otherwise they just set their compromised communications devices on fire and told them they did it.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago (8 children)

In which world getting thousands of Hezbolla operatives unwittingly keeping a bomb in their pocket would not be a good use of resources for Israel?

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[–] feedum_sneedson 2 points 2 months ago

I guess I should have qualified that to exclude individual assassinations, otherwise you'd have to include snipers and whatever. I almost don't believe that "knife missile" is real (quotation marks because the only real knife missiles are Culture technology).

[–] Asifall 24 points 2 months ago (7 children)

I feel like people are missing one of the more heinous aspects of this, which is that it injured thousands of people and only managed to kill ~10 of their targets. The outcome of this attack is going to be general terror and potentially hundreds of life altering injuries but very little military advantage.

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[–] HappycamperNZ 13 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Correct.

Killing civilians isn't a war crime. Deliberately killing civilians, or not taking reasonable steps to minimize civilian casualties is a war crime.

"Small" explosive that is embedded in something passed to and likely worn by the target is unlikely to be a war crime. If they somehow snuck a 1000lb bomb into one it absolutely would be however.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

Booby trapping objects associated with daily civilian use is a war crime

These pagers were distributed to doctors and nurses, so I would also argue that they were booby trapping medical supplies, which are protected.

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