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Comment by shprd | Hacker News Reader

> but the combatants holding those devices were at war, no?

The attack wasn't as targeted as you seem to think. It also hit health workers and bystanders. Approx half the casualties are civilians (including children).

According to Humans rights watch: https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/09/18/lebanon-exploding-pagers...

> 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.

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> Approx half the casualties are civilians

Citation needed for that. None of the news reports, even the heavily biased ones, have reported mass civilian casualties.

The citation, as requested:

  "two children and four health workers in a hospital in southern Beirut were among the 12 people who were killed on Tuesday."

  - Public Health Minister Firas Abiad in a press conference

So that's 50% of those killed, right? and that's just health workers and children (who were 8 and 11 years old, btw). Also, there were multiple footage of the devices exploding among civilians in dense markets and grocery stores, so the percentage of civilians injured might be even higher.

I expect more detailed reports will be shared over the next few days about the total casualty.

> So that's 50% of those killed, right?

Wrong. You claimed:

>>> Approx half the casualties are civilians

Casualties doesn't mean "those who died", it means "Injured or killed".

If you have to use a definition for a word that differs from the dictionary for your argument to work, it's your argument that is broken, not the dictionary.

Your entire argument in this thread is based on not knowing what "casualty" means.

> Your entire argument in this thread is based on not knowing what "casualty" means.

First let's acknowledge that at least 50% of those killed are civilians and many were also injured. That's a fact, you aren't debating that, right? When you mention `my entire argument` you just mean this part "Approx half the casualties are civilians" in my original comment, correct?

What is the criteria for the evidence to satisfy your doubts? If you're demanding the government of Lebanon (or any other party) to classify Lebanese citizens who were admitted to hospitals based on their political agenda, then making such judgment is not possible even if they wanted to. To be frank, in the eyes of the government, they are all civilians, since many other political parties have arms too, if that's what you want. But of course, you don't agree with that classification and at the same time you've no counter-argument.

> First let's acknowledge that at least 50% of those killed are civilians and many were also injured. That's a fact, you aren't debating that, right?

No, I'm specifically calling out your "50% of casualties were civilians" as pure and unadulterated nonsense.

> What is the criteria for the evidence to satisfy your doubts?

There is no way to spin this negatively: 3000 enemy combatants were targeted and 12 civilians were killed.

This must be the lowest percentage of civilian collateral in the history of warfare, and you're blithely trotting out '50% casualties' as a talking point.

I wanna see what percentage of collateral Hezbollah managed, because this is a war, you understand? Enemy action in war always has collateral, and I want to see what percentage you considered acceptable from Hezbollah.

> This must be the lowest percentage of civilian collateral in the history of warfare

It's not even close. And the only way it even seems like a reasonable ratio is equivocating "targeted" with "killed".

But attacks have had as low as 0% civilian collateral casualties, so even if it was 3000 combatants and 12 civilians killed, it wouldn't be the lowest percentage of civilian collateral in the history of warfare.

> I want to see what percentage you considered acceptable from Hezbollah.

War crimes on one side don't excuse war crimes on the other, and criticizing Israel for an indiscriminate attack does not imply accepting all, or even any, of Hezbollah's attacks as "acceptable". There is a good argument that at least one side must be wrong in war, there is no good argument that at least one side must be right.

> equivocating "targeted" with "killed".

Who's equivocating? 3000 combatants were targeted, 12 civilians were killed.

Where's the equivocation?

> War crimes on one side don't excuse war crimes on the other, and criticizing Israel for an indiscriminate attack does not imply accepting all, or even any, of Hezbollah's attacks as "acceptable".

Targeting enemy combatants does not in any way satisfy the criteria for "indiscriminate".

There was no "indiscriminate", there was no "mass casualties".

> First let's acknowledge that at least 50% of those killed are civilians and many were also injured.

To be clear, this argument is more flawed. You don't know the total dead. Do you really think a militant terrorist organization in a non democratic country would immediately and/or accurately report how devastated their combat capacity is?

What are you talking about? Lebanon is a parliamentary democratic republic. Their last parliamentary elections were held in 2022, and nobody disputes the results of those election (which admittedly had a pretty low turnout). Hezbollah is a part of an (albeit weak) coalition government and has 15 seats at the parliament (with 20% of the votes). The reports are coming from the Lebanese Health ministry which is run by Firas Abiad from the Freedom Movement, a Liberal Sunni affiliated party in the ruling coalition with no army and no fighters. Hezbollah controls only 2 ministries in this government (Labor and Public works), neither of which reported on the casualty numbers.

Apart from the issue where this ignores how many people got injured (a much larger number), there's a very simple "survival bias" reason (ironically) why this argument doesn't work.

Children (and potentially health workers, as opposed to men of fighting age) are much more likely to die of such an explosion than men of fighting age. In other words, children will be significantly overrepresented here.

To just back up for a moment, your argument is that an attack that turned enemy combatants into unwitting suicide bombers in civilian areas with children doesn't qualify as terrorism, because children are easy to kill?

Would you hold this opinion if it was an operation by Taliban fighters on US soldiers at home on leave?

Sorry to burst you theory:

1. Hezbollah only mourned 10 out of the 26 killed so far, claiming them as members (one of them being a medic). So the 50% seems to still hold, even leaving some room for malice and mistakes.

2. Most of the explosion incidents and injuries are coming from residential areas in Beirut so statistically the percentage of civilians injured as "collateral damage" is likely high considering many of those carrying these devices were going about their life, either with family or in public places at the time.

My opinion of Israel inclines me to distrust reporting based on its claims, and believe your statements. But I still would require a source for these claims, if you would kindly provide them.

casualties refers to injuries as well as deaths. I think the citation they were looking for was for the ~2800 number. I don't think it's reasonable to say that 6/12 killed were civilians, so half of all casualties were civilian.

We dont know until we get more reports, like you said, it could be higher... but it could also be lower.

This is a dumb position though because all logic would suggest the two ratios are proportional. Civilians are not significantly more likely to die of their injuries than non-civilians. While 12 is a bit of a small sample, it's not unreasonably small to make extrapolations.

How many children do you expect to be combatants?

That still looks like a more targeted approach than "precise strikes" on schools and humanitarian zones like in https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwyx9znxl4eo

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