It's so weird that this super mild take is downvoted on HN... I got the same yesterday.
Everything has to be binary, good vs evil, once you pick your side you have to ignore everything that compromises your idyllic vision.
Everything has to be binary, good vs evil, once you pick your side you have to ignore everything that compromises your idyllic vision.
3g of explosives personally handed to the most senior leadership of your enemy and with enough explosive force that 98% of people who had them attached to their person survived is the very definition of restrained and targeted. Certainly not "indiscriminate".
Man. Blasting off fingers and genitals is really something...
All the information I have seen indicates that they were handed to Hezbollah and distributed by Hezbollah for the intent purpose of avoiding Israeli intelligence services.
With your analogy it would be like emptying the mag in the general direction of the car of the target, praying the target actually is in the car and praying there is no one else anywhere close to him.
1) It was delivered into the pockets of Senior Leadership of Hezbollah, with an incentive for those pagers not to be distributed elsewhere.
2) The explosive yield was very small, of an estimated 3000 pagers; 12 fatalities were recorded, making the death rate about 0.4%. One of which was a child, a relative of a Hezbollah leader. (this is an unjustifiable tragedy, but the only recorded civilian fatality).
3) There has never been, in the history of all warfare, such a surgically precise attack with such a low casualty rate of the civilian population - considering the attack happened at a singular time where it was not possible to get all of the members away from the civilian population at all.
I'm not sure I understand your reasoning, it's not indiscriminate if it's very targeted and very localised.
How do you know this ?
That sounds like a canned talking point. Up there with "Most moral army ever".
It's like something in a James Bond movie, or a cheesy riff on the genre like Kingsman.
You might not want to acknowledge it, but this is definitely a new era of warfare, and one that hopefully has benefits for everyone - reducing the reliance on global supply chains that harm the environment because labour is cheaper elsewhere. (it's a very thin silver lining, let me have it).
Why? They killed 12 people including a child.
If it was bank robbery and the police shot through a child but killed 11 robbers there would be a lot of heads rolling at that police department.
Don't be silly, 11 criminals dead and one bystander is well within limits of even a civilian police force, military ones are considered much more broad.
NATO sets the acceptable loss threshold at 4:1; for every 4 combatants killed, 1 civilian is considered acceptable.
It's very fluid, but you'll be hard pressed to find something more conservative than this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualty_ratio
Yes, this is callous, and cold, and awful, but emotion has no place here, we're talking about people on both sides who feel like they are fighting for their right to exist. This is quite literally war, and there will be casualties.
Truth be told, while I'm not giddy and children dying, I'm glad we're talking about so few civilian casualties despite causing so much damage to Hezbollah operatives and operations.
You aren't even getting the military-civilian ratio for the first wave right. According to the Lebanese Health Ministry we have at least 6 civilians killed (including 4 healthcare workers and 2 children), so that's at most a 1:1 ratio, far less than the 4:1 rate that you cite as "acceptable". And this doesn't even touch on the vastly larger number of wounded (2,750 just for the first wave).
By all indications these devices were intended to maim even more so to kill -- and to do so a great scale. From Wikipedia:
At least 12 people were killed after the first wave of attacks,[73][1][74] and more than 2,750 were wounded.[6][7] Civilians were also killed,[11][14][15] including four healthcare workers[75] and two children.[76] It is not clear if only Hezbollah members were carrying the pagers.[20] Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad said the vast majority of those being treated in emergency rooms were in civilian clothing and their Hezbollah affiliation was unclear.[77] He added the casualties included elderly people as well as young children.50% of 11 is a lot lower than 8.
I suspect that news outlets are picking and choosing “facts” based on their desired narrative already.
It does seem that the reports are still coming in, and are in the process of being evaluated and fact-checked. I chose to go by WP because in most cases at least attempts to reconcile between different sources, though it's far from 100 percent accurate about anything.
Hopefully we'll have better numbers within the coming week or so.
What are you talking about?
What other operation ever conducted do you think even comes close?
Thousands of detonations and a fraction of 1% with any effect off target? What other operation do you think comes even close?
Canned talking point? Try like basic reasoning instead
If doing this isn't already banned by the Geneva Conventions, it is only because it wasn't practical to do. But then again, very little that has happened in this region during the last 80 years has been following any international law.
Panasonic Toughbooks are technically available to the civilian population, but booby trapping a shipment of them that would be delivered to the US military would be a pretty sophisticated military strike. Hardly indiscriminite even if people took them home.
Over god knows how many months you don't think they would spread ?
You don't think a dad would gift a pager to his kids or wife to stay in touch ?
If the US military gives you a laptop, you don't give it to your kids for schoolwork.
I know nothing about Hezbollah, but there's a widespread opinion on HN that any equipment you get from "work" can absolutely only be used by yourself in said work environment. That's really not the case in all cultures, everywhere.
At my previous job, management clearly told us that we could use computers & printers for any personal activity, including paid side jobs, as long as we didn't compete with the company and didn't go completely overboard with the printers (personal judgement).
Not every organization is hostile to its employees/members.
I'm guessing Hezbollah is not comparable to the US military in many respects, and assumptions that hold true for the US military may not hold true for any other military or paramilitary group.
That said, I don't have particularly strong opinions about this attack, and I certainly do not support Hezbollah in any way. But this "it works like this here, therefore it works like this everywhere" mentality is a hindrance to understanding the situation - any situation.
... honestly?
I have no words, that's fucking stupid.
It's not like it's a toy, or it can play games, or that it can be used reach out to a parent/guardian if a child is lost.
It's a pager, a receive only communication tool. An outmoded one by far, and given to you by your terrorist organisation to intentionally evade Israeli detection.
If you're giving it to your children, not only are you basically being negligent in your duties, you're also giving away something that has less utility than the device you used to use and likely have on standby.
If I'd let my prejudice run loose, I'd even argue that militant religious groups have an above average quota of "fucking stupid" people, so odds are indeed fairly good that some of these devices would make it into the hands of someone other than the original owner.
Some would argue that "being related to someone who is fucking stupid" is not a capital offence.
-> Your task is to, with as much accuracy as possible and with the minimum loss of civilian lives as possible, target a hostile force that lives within the population and does not identify themselves. They live outside of your borders.
-> If even a single non-combatant is lost, you are a monster.
-> In the mean time, every month that passes, hundreds of rockets rain down indiscriminate destruction upon your country, an action that has cost the lives of 12 children already.
How do?
I just challenged your - IMO incorrect - suggestion that it's reasonable to assume that no devices would spread to anyone other than the original owner.
If there's such a thing as acceptable collateral damage, the attack may still be reasonable. I'm even leaning towards the opinion that it is.
It's possible to consider the downsides of something without being opposed to it.
Man you sure know a lot about hezbollah internal processes... either that or you're full of shit
And how does the US army relate to the hezbollah ?
I'm an Israeli. So some of my views are aligned with Israel's official views. I would estimate the percentage of the alignment of my views with the current government at a single digit number. I have a negative, visceral reaction to Bibi, and can't stand hearing him even if I want to. I think Israel under the current government is doing almost every mistake possible, and takes the wrong decisions again and again, most probably due to Bibi's criminal issues and corrupted character.
Two wrongs don't make a right... are we really at that level of brain activity on HN of all places ? this is schoolyard level
You can have proportional terrorism, proportional war crimes, proportional crimes against humanity. Proportionality doesn't tell you much, it certainly doesn't tell you anything about it being indiscriminate or not
> Certainly not "indiscriminate".
Cool, go tell that to the two kids who died: https://www.rte.ie/news/2024/0918/1470609-hezbollah-israel/
Also feel free to read the actual texts defining these things, detonating explosives in supermarkets is indiscriminate by nature, there is just no way around it if you're in good faith : https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v1/rule12
Both sides are clearly operating out of the boundaries we defined for conventional wars, is it really that hard to accept ? They're not even trying to hide it really... such a strange allergic reaction to these basic facts
"The principle of proportionality (Article 51(5) (b) API) states that even if there is a clear military target it is not possible to attack it if the expected harm to civilians, or civilian property, is excessive in relation to the expected military advantage."
https://www.diakonia.se/ihl/resources/international-humanita...
So, the case that Israel has to make here is that the expected millitary advantage from the operation exceeds the collateral damage. The fact that civilians died doesn't automatically make it a war crime from an international law point of view.
First, we’re talking about Lebanon and its population, lets not muddy the waters further by suggesting that Hamas and Gaza are part of that conflict right now. But if we did, as far as I can make out, for the entire duration of the war since 10/7 there has been a total of 7,500 children identified as being killed. Sadly that number is not backed up by any independent source and unfortunately Hamas has been known to inflate these numbers.
Nonetheless, it is a tragedy.
An entirely unrelated tragedy to the 12:1 child murder ratio of Hezbollah vs IDF this year, and under entirely different circumstances.
I would prefer more interventions in Gaza to mirror this one in its precision and lack of civilian casualties.
I’m certain that you would prefer no intervention happen at all, which is where we will have to fundamentally disagree and part ways.
I said 10,000 for this year, which is lower than the amount coming from Gaza. You low balled it much further. Hamas might be accused for inflating numbers, but Israeli apologists are actively deflating that number. Regardless, the numbers are staggering.
> I'm certain that you would prefer no intervention ...
Firstly, you don't know me but have immediately filled in who you believe I am based on your expectations. You should reflect on that (and how much you are creating your own world), because those prejudices are exactly what motivate the hate that drives these conflicts.
I would like to see intervention in Gaza. Number one, would be to stop the indiscriminate bombing of children. Number two, would be to provide relief to all of the people who have lost their homes and livelihood, who have been maimed and are starving. Number three, would be to resolve the displacement of the Palestinians in a just manner. Number four, would be judicial proceedings against anyone (Palestinian or Israeli) who committed war crimes.
Israel cannot be bombing civilians. It is a war crime. Gaza is not a sovereign state, but a displaced people living in Israel. If Israel is too weak to go in and arrest criminals who commit heinous crimes, then it needs to contend with the problem and take a different approach to how it deals with the Palestinian people.
I'm perfectly content holding Israel to account for their numerous crimes, but that becomes extremely difficult to do when you have literal terrorists doing everything they can to make things as bloody and cantankerous as humanly possible to cast shadows at Israel.
Bombing civilians is not technically a war crime in of itself, people like to use the word war crime without actually fucking reading what are war crimes, such as not identifying yourself as military, hiding in the population, using medical buildings as cover and so forth.
Israeli's settling the west-bank and blockading aid under the guise of "the more material they have, the more they will use against us" is condemdable; but when 5,000 rockets suddenly launch from Gaza and a ground force invasion kills over a thousand people -- people reasonably start to think that Israel has a point, and all my criticisms against Israel suddenly start to look very impotent.
Where I get annoyed is that people have decided that terrorists are good, actually, despite clearly throwing gay people off of roofs and engaging in what are actual war crimes.
In fact, the number I go from my source was also just Gaza's health ministry telling the UN; it's never been independently verified as far as I can tell; https://www.npr.org/2024/05/15/1251265727/un-gaza-death-toll...
16,500 children (Updated Sept 17. 2024) https://www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2023/10/9/israel-ham...
You resent the implication, but you also did not appear to do any research to support your view.
> Bombing civilians is not technically a war crime in of itself, people like to use the word war crime without actually fucking reading what are war crimes, such as not identifying yourself as military, hiding in the population, using medical buildings as cover and so forth.
"Laws of war likely ‘consistently violated’ in Israeli strikes on Gaza: UN rights office" https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/06/1151196
Not distinguishing between combatants and civilians, causing indiscriminate death and suffering, collective punishment, etc, are all war crimes.
Once again, you have strong beliefs but have not done your research to back them up. Here is the website for the the Geneva Conventions, so that you can question your self: https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/geneva-conven...
> Israeli's settling the west-bank and blockading aid under the guise of "the more material they have, the more they will use against us" is condemdable
The settlement of the West Bank is in direct violation of international law (article 49 of the Geneva Convention) and is a war crime in itself.
> Where I get annoyed is that people have decided that terrorists are good, actually, despite clearly throwing gay people off of roofs and engaging in what are actual war crimes.
I don't know who thinks "terrorists are good". To me, that sounds like a strawman to avoid the realization that what Israel is doing is deeply wrong.
Even Israeli scholars on genocide like Omer Bartov (a former IDF officer) state "it was no longer possible to deny that Israel was engaged in systematic war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocidal actions."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/13/israel...
Israel is engaged in war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. That is painful to acknowledge, but in some ways is not surprising. The victim becoming the victimizer is a human story older than the Bible. The Jewish refugees from WWII underwent terrible horrors and were deeply traumatized. It is not surprising that many of them became radicalized and deeply angry. We have seen the same thing happening to the Palestinians, as well as any other people that is traumatized.
AOC being the most prominent example that comes to mind immediately.
That aside, these definitions were written for a reason, even if they have no appeal to the current victims.
I don't think it could possibly be more targeted. Literally just devices issued by Hezbollah themselves to their own members.
Maybe it wasn't perfect. That seems to be the bar you are setting.
But much closer to perfect than I would have imagined possible. And closer to perfect than I think most people would have imagined. Maybe that is aggravating to people ideologically set against literally anything they might do.
But far superior, and less disruptive to innocent people to tactics used elsewere by Israel. Far far more more targeted and less disruptive to innocent people than the tactics used by Hezbollah themselves.