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Comment by Hermandw | Hacker News Reader

Amir Tsarfati on Telegram: The updated numbers:

4000 wounded of which 400 in critical conditions

Al Jazeera from a Lebanese security source:

The pagers were brought to Lebanon 5 months ago. They were boobytrapped in advance. Each device contained an explosive weighing no more than 20 grams.

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Who exactly is Amir Tsarfati and why is this a trusted source for numbers? I can't find anything reliable about him by search engine.

20 grams that's wild. You could only produce these kinds of effects from a 'military grade' explosive like CL-20 or similar.

per a calculator on unsaferguard.org 20g of RDX

Injury/Fatality to Personnel Range (m) Fatal Distance 0.64 Lung Damage 1.02 Eardrum Rupture 2.63

So apparently, it must be less than 20 g of RDX, and/or a weaker explosive: if the fatal distance was within 0.64 meters, there would be significantly more reported deaths.

20 grams of C4 or similar plastic explosive would be more than adequate to produce the effects seen. CL-20 wouldn't be a good choice for this deployment: it's not particularly stable for rough handling even with a good phlegmatizing blend, and tends to decompose at the temps one would expect a pager to be exposed to (hot car, etc).

That's a fair point my knowledge of explosive chemicals only stems from conventional missile-based warheads and propellants. It's very possible a different explosive was used.

C4 would be easily detectable by spectrometers, including at the airports, wouldn’t it?

And given where pagers are typically kept, future pro-creation of many wounded will be in doubt.

Isn’t this a war crime?

Why would it be?

Booby traps and indiscriminate targeting.

It's not indiscriminate, they were targeting Hezbollah members as precisely as hardly any conventional weapon would be able to.

Hardly seems like a boobytrap. Furthermore, Boobytraps are only a war crime if they target civilians, inflict unnecessary suffering, or are placed in unsavory locations like the trapping of wounded soldiers or medical supplies.

Bobby traps are triggered by the target; these were remotely triggered. These were highly targeted to group members.

Highly targeted? 2 children were killed

If you are mailed something in the mail, is that indiscriminately mailing or targeted mailing? It is obviously targeted. If you mail a business, it is targeted. If you mail a business something to give to all their employees, that is targeted.

Just because someone else might get what is mailed to me or that someone else might pick up what was sent to me doesn't make it "untargeted" - it is highly targeted. But missed.

The Trump attempted assassination was highly targeted and a bystander died.

I feel I have made my case. Can you provide rationale for yours beyond collateral damage? I feel the Trump example trumps that.

Post edit: I also want to acknowledge that you can feel that this is horrible and terrible and all the bad things. We are simply talking about the definition of targeted

Which one more specifically?

First of all, the discussion is purely hypothetical – noone ever put George W Bush in prison for his Iraq invasion. No matter what you, or the world, thinks of it, it's not going to happen.

Second, what Israel and its enemies are doing is far from the land warfare the laws were written for. Do all Hezbollah soldiers wear uniforms indicating their affiliation and rank? Yeah, I thought so.

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