But it didn't happen, right? So maybe, just maybe, the people who did this super elaborate plan had the mental capacity to consider that option and took precautions to ensure that it won't happen?
Even without precautions, the odds that one of the pagers was in a plane over Lebanon within a couple minutes of being on the ground does seem very low. Not zero for sure, but you may be able to mitigate that simply by watching the handful of flights that may be over Lebanon at any one time.
Acceptable collateral damage is about proportionality and trying to reduce casualties to a minimum, it doesn't mean zero (and don't get me wrong, every one is tragic)
And yes, there's something called collateral damage, which depends on the situation is considered legal, so yes, if you actually target a military target and happen to also hit civilians that reside in that target it is not a war crime. But it is a war crime if you just generally lob rockets in a direction hoping to hit something.
We also know for a fact that the top Hezbollah commander had such a pager (since it was reported he was in the hospital for treatment), which is pretty strong evidence they didn't exactly hand them out to random people on the street.
Now, can we know for sure without actually knowing what IDF knew? probably not, but it seems extremely likely based on what we do know that the pagers weren't carried by off duty low level grunts (again, top commander had it, iranian ambassador had one or was in close proximity, 90 or so Iranians had one and were flown back to Iran for treatment), but I guess those were just random iranian tourists that happened to be at the wrong place and the wrong time? right?
And feel free to educate yourself further or the law: https://www.icrc.org/sites/default/files/external/doc/en/ass...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libyan_Arab_Airlines_Flight_11...
"Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 114 (LN 114) was a regularly scheduled civilian flight from Tripoli to Cairo, through Benghazi, that was shot down in 1973 by Israeli fighter jets after it entered by mistake, due to a system malfunction, the airspace of Egypt's Sinai Peninsula – then under Israeli occupation – resulting in the death of 108 civilians"
"The Israeli Cabinet discussed the incident three times in secret meetings. The minutes, declassified in 2023, show that the main decisions were to deny all responsibility and to refuse to hold an official inquiry"
But then, I think the only real difference between a civilian flight and a residential building is that in the first one there's people of many nationalities, while the bodies buried under the collapsed ruins of the building are all Palestinians, so we don't care much about them.
> one there's people of many nationalities
Yes, obviously PR and how the world will react is a big part of decision making.
Also, it's not the IAF pilots "didn't receive a response" to their signals. One of their pilots signaled twice (first with hand gestures, then again by dipping the wings of one of the jets). They did receive a response to first signal at least, but may have been confused by it, or have interpreted as an attempt to flee. It's also entirely possible the pilot of LN 114 was understandably confused and in a very tense mindstate and wasn't sure how to respond.
From WP:
It continued flying eastwards into the Sinai at a speed of 325 miles per hour (282 kn; 523 km/h), until the crew realised they had had problems with their instruments and were off their path; at this moment, the French pilot performed a U-turn, in order to leave the Sinai and go back towards Cairo.[6] The Israeli pilots interpreted it as an attempt to flee and, according to them, then tried to make visual contact with the airliner's crew and to communicate with them by signaling with their hands. Still according to the Israelis, the 727's French pilot responded with a hand gesture indicating refusal, signaling his intention to continue back on his way out of Sinai. The fighters claim to have replied by dipping their wings, what was once again ignored by the civilian airliner crew. Then, the Israeli fighters attacked the civilian plane.