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Comment by csmpltn | Hacker News Reader

You could've labeled it terrorism had Lebanon and Israel weren't at war with each other over the past 12 months, and had the people carrying those devices were random uninvolved civilians.

If you were to consider the fact that Hezbollah has been shelling Israeli cities and civilians on a daily basis for the past 12 months (killing many, also children, and driving hundreds of thousands of people out of their homes), with the UN peacekeeping force failing to keep Hezbollah north of the Litani river - then perhaps you would understand that this is likely as close as you can get to a "precision strike" on an enemy you're at war with.

This may in-fact be the most precise military strike on an enemy paramilitary group in the history of modern warfare.

You either have a very unrealistic idea of what a war actually looks like (0% civilians casualties or injuries), or an agenda.

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The unfortunate thing is that regardless of politics, this will be seen as further escalation that ratchets up the risk of greater regional conflict. All wars eventually end, its just a question of how long, and how much death (both militarily and civilian) will be endured by everyone in the region. I hope there are diplomatic possibilities to de-escalate, but it seems those windows are closing.

I don't know - it would seem that the wars there don't end, it's just continuous with intermittent slow downs.

Let's just say, I don't believe war is a cover for terrorism against any peoples, be it in the West or East, Arab or Caucasian.

Fair enough, and thanks for being open about this. With this in mind, all I can say is that your original comment is based on 100% emotion and 0% analysis and rationality.

Do you think that any military action with civilian impact constitutes terrorism?

no war has ever been waged without collateral damage.

war waged without collateral damage:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emu_War

At least one innocent farmer just trying to safeguard their farm might have suffered contusions and destruction of property!

"Farmers attempted to herd the emus using trucks, but this proved ineffective; one truck even crashed after hitting an emu"

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Emu-War

Terrorism definition is independent of whether there is ongoing war or not, lets not divert the subject with simple whataboutism.

We all know what happened, on both sides, including deaths of tens of thousands of civilians including thousands of palestinian children who did fuck nothing to anybody, just were born at bad place at bad time.

What would be enough kill ratio israeli : palestinian civilian, or even better israeli civilian : palestinian kid/baby that would satiate Israeli government to stop the war? Very conservative estimates put deaths of direct US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq to around 500k, meaning its 500:3 ratio and factual defeat of US army to withdraw and cut losses. So thats the threshold of civilized western world? Israel already surpassed that long time ago.

They can't and won't win with Hamas and they know it, its exactly same situation as Taliban, ISIS etc. Regroup, strike back, stronger, smarter, better equipped, more motivated. Spiral of death can go on and on till there is nobody standing on neither side.

If I had to choose where the next nuclear detonation happens it would be for me 50:50 Ukraine : Israel, and this is how you get there.

do you realize that nurses in hospital, civil servants workers are among people carrying this device? That not all, not even majority of Hizbollah personnel have no military responsibility whatsoever?

There's absolutely no reason for uninvolved, random and peaceful civilians to be carrying a classified wartime-ready pager issued by a paramilitary terrorist organization. If you were carrying the device you're either Hezbollah, or cooperating with them - which makes you a legitimate military target.

Israel has given Lebanon and Hezbollah enough ultimatums to stop the aggressions. This is what happens when diplomacy fails.

> If you were carrying the device you're either Hezbollah, or cooperating with them - which makes you a legitimate military target.

Or you were standing in line next to a guy holding one while waiting to buy groceries. It’s clearly indiscriminate to the collateral damage.

But we already have videos of people standing in very close proximity to the devices being detonated - and not getting hurt. In-fact, many of the people carrying the device in their pockets ended up not sustaining life-threatening injuries.

I'm not saying civilians weren't hurt by this. But I'm also saying that no war has 0% civilian casualties. Those two countries are at war with each other.

If they were truly indiscriminate and and indifferent to collateral damage, there are far easier and more effective ways to kill a few dozen people in Lebanon.

The whole complex and contrived attack speaks of tying to minimize collateral damage.

I like your lack of proportions.

This war is about Hezbollah and Hamas shelling civilians in Israel. Like hundreds of rockets per night. If, to stop that, it may harm a few civilians who are waiting next to Hezbollah members,

…you would let people keep shelling civilians by hundreds and hundreds of rockets?

How do you choose your actions, do you always support the guys who cause the maximum deaths? How does it work, “indiscriminate damage” is as soon as a person is inconvenienced while they were holding Hezbollah’s grocery bags? Shouldn’t they … distance themselves?

Pun unintended. But it’s a very good question. Shouldn’t they distance themselves from active murderers?

This won't do anything meaningful to reduce civilian deaths. Less than 0.1% of Lebanon injured, and 10x that number now even more enraged. Not meaningfully repeatable either, won't create significant attrition

Stoking the flames of death is all.

This sends a message to Hezbollah and Lebanon. "Last chance to turn around". After 12 months of back-and-forth, and all attempts at diplomacy failing.

Beirut can end up just like Gaza, but Israel has been restraining itself. Not for much longer.

> Israel has been restraining itself. Not for much longer.

If this is what a restrained Israel looks like, the god help us all.

Gaza is not restraint. This pager operation proves that. Gaza is genocide.

The massive disruption of Hezbollah's communication network may cripple them enough to shorten the duration of the conflict, and possibly help turn public sentiment from Lebonese civilians into pressure to find a way to end things. The civilians are the people who on average do not feel strongly enough to fight, and may have large number pissed that a group-- even if they believe in its cause-- has brought violence to their communities through a surprise attack against a more powerful enemy. More than half of the Lebonese population believe there is no military solution to the overall dispute: https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/shadow-h...

> …you would let people keep shelling civilians by hundreds and hundreds of rockets?

I said no such thing though do find it interesting that any questioning of the methods used by one party is interpreted as blanket acceptance of all methods used by the other.

> Pun unintended. But it’s a very good question. Shouldn’t they distance themselves from active murderers?

How could they possibly know? I’ve never been in line for a sandwich and thought to ask if the person in front of me might spontaneously explode.

All available evidence suggests there's nothing "classified" or "wartime ready" about these - they were your basic, cheap, totally unencrypted POCSAG/Flex pager. The same as any other pager carried by doctors and all the other people who use them - aside from the hidden explosives, of course.

I doubt that was the case for these specifically hacked and weaponized devices. The operation appears to be ingenious and precisely layered in design. It very specifically targeted a group of people who were first convinced to ditch their mobile devices because they were hackable by Israel. Then the target group was provided the weaponized devices. They were bulk triggered at a specific moment of time. The weaponized device (while certainly lethal in some cases) was seemingly designed to maim and minimize damage beyond the person holding the device. And… perhaps most importantly, they were expected to be kept in a front pocket increasing the likelihood of physically emasculating the target group. It’s the ultimate “you don’t want to fuck with us”.

Its disturbing as hell…but brilliant.

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