The Israeli government did not tamper with the Hezbollah devices that exploded, defense and intelligence officials say. It manufactured them as part of an elaborate ruse.
In Lebanon, as Israel picked off senior Hezbollah commandos with targeted assassinations, their leader came to a conclusion: If Israel was going high-tech, Hezbollah would go low. It was clear, a distressed Hezbollah chief, Hassan Nasrallah, said, that Israel was using cellphone networks to pinpoint the locations of his operatives.
. . .
Israeli intelligence officials saw an opportunity.
Even before Mr. Nasrallah decided to expand pager usage, Israel had put into motion a plan to establish a shell company that would pose as an international pager producer.
By all appearances, B.A.C. Consulting was a Hungary-based company that was under contract to produce the devices on behalf of a Taiwanese company, Gold Apollo. In fact, it was part of an Israeli front, according to three intelligence officers briefed on the operation. They said at least two other shell companies were created as well to mask the real identities of the people creating the pagers: Israeli intelligence officers.
In Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, in the village of Saraain, one young girl, Fatima Abdullah, had just come home from her first day of fourth grade when she heard her father’s pager begin to beep, her aunt said. She picked up the device to bring it to him and was holding it when it exploded, killing her. Fatima was 9.
And
By the end of the day, at least a dozen people were dead and more than 2,700 were wounded, many of them maimed. And the following day, 20 more people were killed and hundreds wounded when walkie-talkies in Lebanon also began mysteriously exploding. Some of the dead and wounded were Hezbollah members, but others were not; four of the dead were children.
Both are war crimes, and while Israel hasn’t formally declared war. Their defense minister is calling this a war.
But you can’t use indiscriminate attacks, and you can’t aim for maiming instead of killing.
Shit like this just makes more terrorists, which at this point is pretty obvious is Israels goal. They do t want to “win a war” they want to create a permanent boogey man so Israels current unpopular leaders get to hold.o to power a little longer.
Bibi and his people will keep doing this shit, because it’s the only way they keep power.
They want war and chaos
Bibi and his people will keep doing this shit, because it’s the only way they keep power. They want war and chaos
I wish I could disagree, but, not possible.
which at this point is pretty obvious is Israels goal.
I think it’s important to separate all of Israel, which includes ten million people with many different views, with the folks above. Not every Israelite, or even the majority of them, necessarily want this.
But you can’t use indiscriminate attacks,
Agreed. In the past I was willing to give some credibility to the IDF’s claim that Hamas used their own urban population as hostages and that’s why it was difficult for the IDF. But that line of reasoning doesn’t apply with the pagers - those would have always hurt some civilians no matter how isolated Hezbollah kept from the general population.
and you can’t aim for maiming instead of killing.
Also agreed. Though given a choice between the two I’d be happy to be alive…
Both are war crimes, and while Israel hasn’t formally declared war. Their defense minister is calling this a war.
Wondering if this is worse - since it’s not a formal declaration of war they’ve decided to ignore the rules of engagement and such?!
They want war and chaos
What’s your view on Hezbollah launching rockets and mortars over the border?
Whataboutism.
Two groups can be bad at the same time.
They eliminated 2800 terrorists and only killed 20 civilians. That’s the most successful attack on an entrenched gorilla force in the history of humanity.
Hezbollah and Hamas love to use civilians, children, and humanitarian aid as shields. Committing war crimes to stop the people committing war crimes is an odd argument.
This was a much more humane attack than firing RPGs from a hospital for example.
They eliminated 2800 terrorists
Israel said they’re terrorists…
They also called American citizens who protest the American government providing arms for a genocide terrorists…
Would you be ok with them blowing up US college students for using the first amendment?
It’s more like can we pick off those 2 or 3 people in that crowd of protesters that are about to do serious harm? If so…yea…do it.
But we don’t know if they did…
IDF claims it only hit targets, which we know isn’t true, and people standing next to them were blown up too
I just don’t understand why anyone would just take the IDFs word, they lie constantly
Ideally you don’t take their word, you send journalists and international investigators to the scene to verify.
What you definitely do not do however is take Hezbollah’s word.
The same journalists and international investigators that Israel has been blatantly murdering left and right?
Yes.
They kill journalists and investigators too.
Ideally you don’t take their word, you send journalists and international investigators to the scene to verify.
Which has happened and they have shown that obviously if someone blows up while walking down the street, the explosion doesn’t magically know not to injure anyone else
Leaked videos show people standing right next to them not getting hurt at all
Weird…you’d think you’d have a problem when the other side does it and takes out only non combatants in a crowd.
Because I’m up on the last century of terror in that area. It’s just not compatible with western values…at all.
It’s weird…all weird. Hezbollah wouldn’t think twice of beheading a gay man in the middle of the street, but here on Lemmy they’re like some bastion of freedom and justice.
This was a surgical strike against a very evil organization. It’s about as humane as it gets when you’re fighting an inhumane enemy.
This was a surgical strike
If you ignore all the evidence and just reality in general.
I can do the same and call a lump of lead a gold nugget, but I’m not going to have much luck selling it to anyone in touch with reality.
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Am I the only one here that can still remember all the way back to October? WTF?
How about the 80 years before October. You wanna talk about the past?
How far back you wanna go? They were a classy bunch as the ottoman empire as well.
“as the Ottoman empire” lol racist doesn’t know the difference between a turk and a palastinian. No argument needed buddy, you already self reported
You might want to read up on what the Ottoman Empire was
Like when gunships mowed down their own civilians?
Lol…holy fuck…really? You believe that?
You don’t/didn’t see those videos?
Use of the Hannibal Directive was self-admitted
The Gaza Ghetto Uprising see 21:51
Israel is a state sponsor of terror and should be condemned as such.
They should be sanctioned.
Everyone targeted was a member of an internationally recognised terrorist organisation, and there was no reason for non-members to ever have the pagers. There are questions about rules of engagement, but one thing this operation wasn’t technically is terrorism.
These devices exploded in public places without regard for collateral damage to civilians. It is yet another war crime by Israel in addition to being an act of terror.
Also it’s just not true that everyone was a member of Hezbollah. These devices are used by medical staff in hospitals. Israel has form in targeting doctors and hospitals.
I’m not defending it, but how is this different than targeted strikes with gps guided weapons, including the katanabomb? That also has collateral damage.
One can suggest the west is engaged in terrorism in that way too, and I personally believe such strikes only create more terrorists.
But clearly most of the global community agrees with certain targeted strikes on terrorists. This is just a particular flavor of it, and is another shitty feature of the modern “war on terror”.
Another comment said that this is just going to further the violence for another decade (among the other shit Israel is up to) and I agree that the conflict IS the point.
It fucking sucks.
People are pretty universal in their condemnation of American attacks that kill civilians, that’s why we see the names of those people less, Trump made that change. Biden rolled back those changes finally, but you’re not gonna believe some of the new rules, stuff like stop fucking drone striking civilians you sociopaths: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/01/us/biden-drone-strikes.html
So yeah, America is both complicit in and has been (maybe still is) a sponsor of terror in many situations. And if one of those people affected by America in that way were to somehow get a bunch of cell phone bombs on GI’s hips while they were out with their families, to those people it might be justified while I would still call it terrorism.
The point is half the planet “accepts” drone strikes of terrorists, on the justification that those terrorists are “conducting war” where ever they are.
Note I am not holding this opinion, I’m describing it.
I would assume Israel is riding along the same idea.
Again, not my idea.
I get what you’re saying, but my point is it’s not really accepted. It’s actually an incredibly controversial process that has recently been updated in the US to include not targeting civilians specifically.
Totally respect it’s not your idea, I’m just pointing out that I think it’s much more complicated when you involve civilian collateral damage, which is actually terrorism in a mask with an overcoat.
Yes agree. It’s just that in some shape or form, western countries have been hunting terrorists and accepting (an amount) of collateral damage, for decades. It’s seen as “warfare”. I think we can assume Israel, in this case, thinks it’s aligned with global norms with the beeper method.
I think it’s a whole lot grayer than that
You cannot target with an explosive detonated at random. Lemme detonate a bomb next to your kid on a bus and see how you fucking feel when I tell you he was collateral and untargetted. See if that makes you feel better.
Yeah if I first killed your kid by firing some rockets at its playground, I don’t think you’re going to be so stoic anymore
And what about the guy who killed my son? What about his son the day before?
Exactly. I’m glad you see the problem
Did you ask Fatima, the 10 year old girl killed in the explosions, if it was terrorism? Or would you just tell her she should not have had that pager? Fucken heartless statement right here.
Did you ask the 1000 or so civilians that were raped and murdered for start this round of aggression of they’re ok with being raped and murdered?
Confusing Hezbollah and Hamas?
Hezbollah cheered Hamas’ action before they joined the fight to support them
New title: “How Isreal commit acts of terrorism”
You know the more that I think about it, the more I realize that if the CIA or NSA were tasked with eliminating Hezbollah using the same vulnerability, they probably would have set up the same shell company, but install a hardware wire backdoor into every device which would let them do insane espionage or setup widespread jamming or even fake intel, complelty remotely too.
They already have so many systems that do similar things, it wouldn’t even be that difficult for them to pull off and cause Hezbollah to disintegrate by having them run around falling into easily laid traps.
But of course this is Israel, so they went with explosives to maximize that sweet civilian collateral like they’re trying to top the bang for buck warcrime leaderboard.
I’m left wondering how they were triggered. Were they all just set on a timer? Or were they able to somehow remotely send a signal? And if they were able to send a signal, were they also able to intercept messages?
It’s a device designed to receive signals ;p
I think for the pagers the consensus is that a particular code would have been sent to the devices.
From the sounds of witness reports, it was either 1 message setting off a 5-10 second timer, or it was 2 messages in a similar spacing. It was designed to get someone to look at the pager before it blew up in their face. Apparently doctors have been dealing with it blinding shit tons of people.
It’s a device designed to receive signals
Yes but only specific signals. That’s the whole point.
Yes, so if someone sent a very unique message, I’m not sure how many characters fit on a pager, but something nobody would ever send, then it could be the activation “password”.
I never had or used a pager, but I think it’s possible to send short alphanumeric messages to them via the cell phone network (GSM, or whatever)
I don’t think you understand. The whole point of the network they built was for security. If just anyone can send a message, that would be a huge security vulnerability.
I must admit I thought pagers used the gsm (cellular) network, but could only receive messages and therefore couldn’t be triangulated / located like a mobile phone.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pager#Security
Reading deeper, if it’s radio signals then I can’t imagine Israel would have any problems replicating or spoofing them.
Got news for you, pretty much all wireless communication is via radio 😀
Yes, it sounds like Hezbollah built their own personal network. Yet another benefit of pagers, it’s far less expensive to communicate when you’re talking about just a few bytes of data.
This could only work on pagers sold over there. There’s no need to panic guys! Much larger iPad devices are probably totally different and we should totally trust that no manufacturer would ever make any such thing happen in any other country. And this would also probably not be an issue to worry about in airports since those things don’t actually fly. Right? …ok sir, belt, Shoes in this bin, your completely disassembled laptops parts on these bins, and fake teeth on this Tupperware. Thanks!
Probably amongst the most impressive and precisely targeted strikes against a terror organization in history when taking the scale into consideration. Mossad is one of the most inventive intelligence agencies out there. They do not mess around.
If it is enough to dissuade Hezbollah escalating to an all out war in Lebanon, the few tragic collaterals pale in comparison to the number of prevented deaths.
It reminds me vaguely of Operation Trojan Shield, except with explosions.
I’m thinking a terrorist attack of this magnitude with the amount of collateral casualties it had will have international implications that reach far beyond convincing Hezbollah from escalating into a war, if it’s actually going to achieve that at all. We’re talking about a terrorist group, not an army. Personally i think this will probably just delay it and strengthen their resolve to actually go to war and be even more cruel. Terror groups thrive in terror conditions. The strongest military force on the world couldn’t make a dent in terrorist groups operating in the middle east. Peace and stability, however, destroy terror groups.
I’m pretty sure everyone has realized that further atrocities are not the way out of this war. I just hope the belligerent parties can realize it faster and start coming to terms that they will have to share the land and make concessions. Until then i guess we’ll keep seeing innocents die for motivations that make less sense each time, like Fatima Abdullah, who was just 9.
Peace and stability, however, destroy terror groups.
Which is precisely why Hamas escalated the Israeli-Palestine conflict last October. They were afraid that Israeli efforts towards fostering peace and cooperation with the other Arab countries were being successful.
Peace will be impossible to accomplish until the Middle-East at large accepts the existence of Israel, and Hamas have in turn proven that is impossible as long as militant islamist extremists with the primary goal of killing as many Israelis as possible (as opposed to securing safety, prosperity and freedom for Palestinians) rule in either of the two Palestinian territories.
It goes both ways. Like Guterres said, Hamas doesn’t exist in a vacuum. This is not to say that terrorism is justified, or that i agree with Hamas’ actions, but Hamas in itself only has the power it has because of the antagonizing of so many peoples ever since Israel was founded. I believe there is a place for Israel in the world, but probably never as a Jewish nation. Simply put, the region was never just Jewish or just Muslim, it was always multi cultural and multi religious along different parts of history. As such the future of Israel lies as a multi cultural and multi religious nation.
I understand other Muslim states are also organized towards mainly Muslims as Israel wants to be organized mainly towards Jews, but the way Israel was founded, by taking a land that had a strong Muslim presence, there is no possible way to create a state like Israel wants without a tremendous amount of bloodshed and cruelty that will tarnish the entire history of Judaism and Israel itself, as well as the US by association, ever worse than it already has. And even if Israel and the US accept the shame of the absolute bloodshed and genocide of an entire peoples, i doubt the nation of Israel will ever know peace and the US taxpayers will ever stop having to constantly pay to keep Israel from being destroyed.
Media Bias/Fact Check - News Source Context (Click to view Full Report)
Information for Media Bias/Fact Check:
MBFC: Least Biased - Credibility: High - Factual Reporting: Very High - United States of America
Wikipedia about this sourceNew York Times - News Source Context (Click to view Full Report)
Information for New York Times:
MBFC: Left-Center - Credibility: High - Factual Reporting: High - United States of America
Wikipedia about this source“Least biased” that is a joke. The NYT was literally regurgitating Israeli propaganda about October 7th rapes and constantly gaslights us about the genocide in Gaza, using the passive voice to mask Israeli crimes.
