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How Israel Built a Modern-Day Trojan Horse: Exploding Pagers (www.nytimes.com)

submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/world

61 comments fedilink hide all child comments

The Israeli government did not tamper with the Hezbollah devices that exploded, defense and intelligence officials say. It manufactured them as part of an elaborate ruse.

In Lebanon, as Israel picked off senior Hezbollah commandos with targeted assassinations, their leader came to a conclusion: If Israel was going high-tech, Hezbollah would go low. It was clear, a distressed Hezbollah chief, Hassan Nasrallah, said, that Israel was using cellphone networks to pinpoint the locations of his operatives.

. . .

Israeli intelligence officials saw an opportunity.

Even before Mr. Nasrallah decided to expand pager usage, Israel had put into motion a plan to establish a shell company that would pose as an international pager producer.

By all appearances, B.A.C. Consulting was a Hungary-based company that was under contract to produce the devices on behalf of a Taiwanese company, Gold Apollo. In fact, it was part of an Israeli front, according to three intelligence officers briefed on the operation. They said at least two other shell companies were created as well to mask the real identities of the people creating the pagers: Israeli intelligence officers.

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[–] givesomefucks 76 points 1 month ago (30 children)

In Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, in the village of Saraain, one young girl, Fatima Abdullah, had just come home from her first day of fourth grade when she heard her father’s pager begin to beep, her aunt said. She picked up the device to bring it to him and was holding it when it exploded, killing her. Fatima was 9.

And

By the end of the day, at least a dozen people were dead and more than 2,700 were wounded, many of them maimed. And the following day, 20 more people were killed and hundreds wounded when walkie-talkies in Lebanon also began mysteriously exploding. Some of the dead and wounded were Hezbollah members, but others were not; four of the dead were children.

Both are war crimes, and while Israel hasn't formally declared war. Their defense minister is calling this a war.

But you can't use indiscriminate attacks, and you can't aim for maiming instead of killing.

Shit like this just makes more terrorists, which at this point is pretty obvious is Israels goal. They do t want to "win a war" they want to create a permanent boogey man so Israels current unpopular leaders get to hold.o to power a little longer.

Bibi and his people will keep doing this shit, because it's the only way they keep power.

They want war and chaos

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Bibi and his people will keep doing this shit, because it’s the only way they keep power. They want war and chaos

I wish I could disagree, but, not possible.

which at this point is pretty obvious is Israels goal.

I think it's important to separate all of Israel, which includes ten million people with many different views, with the folks above. Not every Israelite, or even the majority of them, necessarily want this.

But you can’t use indiscriminate attacks,

Agreed. In the past I was willing to give some credibility to the IDF's claim that Hamas used their own urban population as hostages and that's why it was difficult for the IDF. But that line of reasoning doesn't apply with the pagers - those would have always hurt some civilians no matter how isolated Hezbollah kept from the general population.

and you can’t aim for maiming instead of killing.

Also agreed. Though given a choice between the two I'd be happy to be alive...

Both are war crimes, and while Israel hasn’t formally declared war. Their defense minister is calling this a war.

Wondering if this is worse - since it's not a formal declaration of war they've decided to ignore the rules of engagement and such?!

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[–] Mrkawfee 38 points 1 month ago (17 children)

Israel is a state sponsor of terror and should be condemned as such.

[–] Doorbook 12 points 1 month ago

They should be sanctioned.

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[–] AshMan85 31 points 1 month ago

New title: "How Isreal commit acts of terrorism"

[–] mlg 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

You know the more that I think about it, the more I realize that if the CIA or NSA were tasked with eliminating Hezbollah using the same vulnerability, they probably would have set up the same shell company, but install a hardware wire backdoor into every device which would let them do insane espionage or setup widespread jamming or even fake intel, complelty remotely too.

They already have so many systems that do similar things, it wouldn't even be that difficult for them to pull off and cause Hezbollah to disintegrate by having them run around falling into easily laid traps.

But of course this is Israel, so they went with explosives to maximize that sweet civilian collateral like they're trying to top the bang for buck warcrime leaderboard.

[–] werefreeatlast 4 points 1 month ago

This could only work on pagers sold over there. There's no need to panic guys! Much larger iPad devices are probably totally different and we should totally trust that no manufacturer would ever make any such thing happen in any other country. And this would also probably not be an issue to worry about in airports since those things don't actually fly. Right? ....ok sir, belt, Shoes in this bin, your completely disassembled laptops parts on these bins, and fake teeth on this Tupperware. Thanks!

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