nytimes.com
www.nytimes.com

Israel carried out its operation against Hezbollah on Tuesday by hiding explosive material within a new batch of Taiwanese-made pagers imported into Lebanon, according to American and other officials briefed on the operation.

The pagers, which Hezbollah had ordered from Gold Apollo in Taiwan, had been tampered with before they reached Lebanon, according to some of the officials. Most were the company’s AP924 model, though three other Gold Apollo models were also included in the shipment.

The explosive material, as little as one to two ounces, was implanted next to the battery in each pager, two of the officials said. A switch was also embedded that could be triggered remotely to detonate the explosives.

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  • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
    210·
    2 months ago

    So…

    They’re just casually admitting to another war crime?

    Against someone I don’t even think they’re officially at war against?

    • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.worldEnglish
      120·
      2 months ago

      When there are zero consequences for war crimes, the “rules based” law and order we virtue signal is completely meaningless.

    • pandapoo@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      27·
      2 months ago

      Not that Israel needs an excuse to commit a war crimes on any day that ends in Y, but I don’t believe this is a violation of the Geneva convention.

      It was a mass targeted assassination campaign against an opposition military force structure. I’m not saying it’s not a crime, just that I don’t believe it’s a war crime.

      But I’m open to the very real possibility that I am wrong about that. So if I am, can you point me to the article(s) it’s in violation of?

      I genuinely would like to fill that gap in my knowledge, if it exists.

        • pandapoo@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          38·
          2 months ago

          Those are rooted in actions like bombardments of civilian areas e.g. Dresden, Gaza, etc.

          Just because an action has collateral damage, does not make it indiscriminate.

          Again, it’s not like Israel isn’t already committing war crimes every day, I’m just not clear if this is one of them.

          For example, when the Ukrainian’s assassinated the propagandist in St Petersburg at the cafe, there was collateral damage. Still doesn’t make it a war crime.

          I am not comparing the morality of Ukraine to israel, I’m just giving you relevant example from recent history

          • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
            15·
            2 months ago

            Just because an action has collateral damage, does not make it indiscriminate.

            It’s definitely indiscriminate. They chose to use explosives that will cause large amounts of collateral damage. Even if the idea itself is fine, the 2750 injuries are 100% on them.

            • AHemlocksLie@lemmy.zipEnglish
              17·
              2 months ago

              I haven’t seen reports of significant collateral damage. I’m sure there was at least some, but that’s different from large amounts of collateral damage. To be considered indiscriminate, I think it would need to have either used larger charges with a bigger blast radius or distribute the pagers more widely in the hopes that Hezbollah agents got them along with the public. From my understanding, which may be flawed, neither of those conditions are true, so while there almost certainly was collateral damage, I don’t currently think it was widespread enough to consider the attack indiscriminate. If you have a source to contradict me, I’m open to reading it.

              Fuck Israel’s rampant genocidal war crimes, but I don’t think this counts as one.

              • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
                6·
                2 months ago

                Admittedly I can’t find the civilian injury numbers (I don’t think they’re out yet), but I found this:

                “Even if the attacks seem to have been targeted, they had heavy, indiscriminate collateral damages among civilians, including children among the victims,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in a statement Wednesday after he met with Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib for talks.

                At least, they were indiscriminate enough that the EU foreign policy chief found it appropriate to call them indiscriminate, which makes sense given that they were at least strong enough to kill or injure the guy sitting next to you on the bus if you’re carrying a pager.

                Also from here:

                Hezbollah has vowed to retaliate against Israel. The group said two of its fighters were among the dead and threatened a “just punishment”.

                Given that 12 have died so far (9 at the time of the article), I’d expect more than 2 to be Hezbollah fighters before I call the attack discriminate. Now while there is a chance they’re more discriminate than this information implies, I doubt they got enough Hezbollah combatants or combat-adjacent members to qualify as valid military action.

                • AHemlocksLie@lemmy.zipEnglish
                  6·
                  2 months ago

                  Hmmm you may be right. We’ll have to see how the numbers shake out to be sure either way, but I’ll concede it at least sounds plausible the collateral damage is unacceptably high.

            • yetAnotherUser@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
              5·
              2 months ago

              Large collateral damage is a percentage.

              An attack that targets and harms mostly combatants with little collateral damage is not indiscriminate. I’m curious what the ratio of combatants to noncombatants is before arguing whether this attack was a war crime.

            • pandapoo@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
              14·
              2 months ago

              I was, and you cited something that is not applicable.

              At least, not as it was intended and has been applied. Maybe this will be a precedent setting case, but until then…

              Maybe you should read it…

      • Fedizen@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        2 months ago

        pagers are small enough that its likely a number of people were injured by pagers that had like fallen out of somebody’s pocket.

    • Icalasari@fedia.io
      25·
      2 months ago

      I swear it’s got to be to drag the middle east into a massive war to maybe trigger some sort of clause that forces the US to go to war for Israel or end up with massive penalties. It’s the only thing that makes sense that isn’t just, “For the Evilulz”

      And I swear to fuck if the US was actually stupid enough to enter a deal that forces them to go to war and send troops if the entire Middle East turns on Israel…

      • T00l_shed@lemmy.worldEnglish
        6·
        2 months ago

        I mean, bibi seems to have the US by the short and curlies. I have no doubt that if things got spicy enough the US would gladly send boots on the ground to die for Israel’s actions. I could even imagine bibi saying “oh we’re so hurt, you guys do this, and we will stay back to defend our territory” while some poor schmuck from winsconsin gets exploded by an ied.

    • azertyfun@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      6·
      2 months ago

      I’m as critical of Israel as any reasonable person but that’s like the one thing they did recently that was actually a (at least somewhat) targeted attack against their enemies.

      Calling that a war crime unnecessarily and dangerously dilutes the term. Leveling cities and starving the fleeing population is a war crime and a crime against humanity. Intentionally shooting civilians, children, aid workers, and journalists is a war crime. How about we focus on those, it’s not like there’s a shortage of israeli war crimes to report on.

      EDIT: Apparently Lebanon reports 2800 injured and 12 dead from these attacks… How many fucking explosive pagers were involved? I doubt a significant percentage of those were Hezbollah, which would make that a war crime. The callous inefficiency of IDF operations will never cease to amaze me.

      • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
        11·
        2 months ago

        Why would you think only valid military targets were next to these?

        Why are you still believing the IDFs first reports when the vast majority of the time they’re lying?

        • azertyfun@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          3·
          2 months ago

          Why would you think only valid military targets were next to these?

          That’s… not a war crime is. I don’t want to be the guy who justifies the death of civilians, because each one is a tragedy, but unfortunately in war there is such a thing as greater evils.

          Why are you still believing the IDFs first reports when the vast majority of the time they’re lying?

          Now that’s fair. And of course we can as well point out that their whole war is self-inflicted to start with so there’s not much legitimacy to any of their acts of war, even the less illegal ones.

          • Keeponstalin@lemmy.worldEnglish
            7·
            2 months ago

            This is terrorism and a violation of International humanitarian law. It’s not a war crime because Lebanon and Israel are not at war, yet Israel just attacked civilians in public, including health workers, and even officials in Parliament. Lebanese civilians are people like anyone else, yet this isn’t treated like the mass terrorist attack it is in most Western Media.

            Thousands of pagers simultaneously exploded across Lebanon and parts of Syria on September 17, 2024, resulting in at least 12 deaths, including at least two children and two health workers, and at least 2,800 injuries, according to Lebanon’s Ministry of Health.

            Photographs and videos filmed by victims and witnesses to the incident and reviewed by Human Rights Watch showed pagers exploding in various locales, such as grocery stores. Other videos that appear to be linked to the incident show adults and children in emergency rooms with severe penetrating traumatic injuries to their heads, torsos. and limbs, and other injuries consistent with the detonation of high explosives.

            Hezbollah, in a statement, said that the pagers belonged “to employees of various Hezbollah units and institutions” and blamed the Israeli government. US and former Israeli officials speaking to the media said that Israel was responsible for the attack. The Israeli military has not commented.

            “Customary international humanitarian law prohibits the use of booby traps – objects that civilians are likely to be attracted to or are associated with normal civilian daily use – precisely to avoid putting civilians at grave risk and produce the devastating scenes that continue to unfold across Lebanon today. The use of an explosive device whose exact location could not be reliably known would be unlawfully indiscriminate, using a means of attack that could not be directed at a specific military target and as a result would strike military targets and civilians without distinction. A prompt and impartial investigation into the attacks should be urgently conducted.”

            • Lama Fakih, Middle East and North Africa Director at Human Rights Watch
            • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
              4·
              2 months ago

              It’s not a war crime because Lebanon and Israel are not at war,

              Their defense minister literally just said it was a war…

              Speaking to Israeli troops on Wednesday, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said, “We are at the start of a new phase in the war — it requires courage, determination and perseverance.” He made no mention of the exploding devices but praised the work of Israel’s army and security agencies, saying “the results are very impressive.”

              https://apnews.com/article/lebanon-israel-exploding-pagers-hezbollah-syria-ce6af3c2e6de0a0dddfae48634278288

              They’re desperately trying to start wars to drag the US in while Biden is still in office.

              If an all out war happens, there is 100% chance Biden dives into it.

              Kamala there’s a slight chance she does the right thing, and trump’s price to go against Russia’s allies will be ridiculously high.

              So they want Biden to be the one to react.