to think that putting explosives in devices such as pagers and walkie talkies can lead to indiscriminate injuries and killings

[cakeorwine]

Let's get the first thing out of the way - it's not right to fire missiles and rockets at people - as that can cause indiscriminate injuries as well.

Putting explosives in devices such as pagers and walkie talkies - it sounds clever. Just send a signal and an explosion goes off potentially injuring and killing your opponent who has it. It will also disrupt communication methods.

But once you put the explosive in it, you lose control of where it goes and when it gets blown up. It could be a child has it. It could be on a plane - and might not be picked up by security.

You don't know where it ends up. Which means that it has the potential for unintended consequences.

What about any that didn't go off? Are there objects that have been booby trapped and are just potentially waiting to explode - and who knows where they are? The thing about booby traps is that you just don't know who will set them off.

Booby traps seem to be against the International Humanitarian Law if they can injure civillians.

Customary IHL - Rule 80. Booby-Traps (icrc.org)

The rockets shot into Israel is sufficient proof.

Sure. Because any new shipment is going to be throughly checked now,

You must be joking. I was accused of that simply because posters ran out of any logical response and so stoop to attacking my character instead of the substance of my comments.

Repeating the UN condemnation of this attack and pointing out that Hezbollah has not stopped firing rockets into Israel and so the attack was pretty useless from a tactical and strategic standpoint is a rational opinion.

There is no emotion in it at all and definitely not sympathy for terrorism.

If you want to delude yourself into thinking Israel has beaten Hezbollah and they aren’t a threat, then go ahead, but don’t accuse a person who is saying ‘hey…rockets are still being fired here! I don’t think the attack was quite the success that’s being touted’ of sympathising.

I prefer that the laws governing wars be followed.

IDF have already been bombing Lebanon, Syria and Iran even though they have assured these countries they are not trying to start a war with them.

What if a non-ally foreign country, say Russia or China, bombed us? And then said we aren’t trying to start a war with you, we are just bombing where we think terrorists are. Would the U.K. find that a-ok?

Hezbolla were using the pagers so that the messages wouldn't be picked up from mobile signals. Getting them to explode was frankly something I could see Putin picking up on to take out his enemies.

You don't need to be organised for militants to individually keep launching existing caches of rockets. Resupplying will be more difficult however.

No definition of "disarray" that I've found includes the words "complete lack of... ability to carry on usual operations" so I'm going to assume that you've invented that bit yourself.

Like what exactly? What method would cause as much disruption to Hezbollah as this has for so little collateral damage?

The OP seems to think that carpet bombing would but I'm rather sceptical of that assessment.

You have no idea what's going on behind the scenes. You don't know how their logistics have been impacted, or what Hezbollah were planning to do but have had to cancel.

You really are grasping at straws, aren’t you? You get handed your new pager (collecting it with your left hand because the right one is still a bit sore) and the person handing it says "it's all right, we've checked this one". You reckon that you'd have complete faith in that?

Batshit crazy...

I see no one has commented on the fact that although they claim these explosions were supposed to be tiny, they ended up killing at least 20 people and injuring 450 more.

So clearly not that small.

5000 explosions around a country. All at the same time. Not knowing where those explosions would be and who would be in the vicinity when they happened. People will say that the explosions were tiny but clearly they were powerful enough to injure and kill people.

"“Simultaneous targeting of thousands of individuals, whether civilians or members of armed groups, without knowledge as to who was in possession of the targeted devices, their location and their surroundings at the time of the attack, violates international human rights law and, to the extent applicable, international humanitarian law,” said Volker Türk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, in a statement."

Yes. It is called terrorism.

It's easy to spot the terrorist. He's the one with the biggest bomb. - Brendan Behan

And your suggestion is?

None of the active actors in this shitshow could care less about who they kill.
This new game seems, so far..., more targeted than previous warfare tactics used recently.
In a fair world, the whole lot of political and armed parties involved in the wider conflict would go to jail, leaving space for others who know the meaning of the word peace and are willing to live in peace.

By ensuring that the explosive device was something small, very personal to the intended target and statistically most likely to be on the target's personage at the time of detonation?

@cakeorwine ,

‘I see no one has commented on the fact that although they claim these explosions were supposed to be tiny, they ended up killing at least 20 people and injuring 450 more.’

What should they have used? Party crackers?! If no one was killed or injured, it would hardly be an attack on their enemy.

The vast majority of those killed and injured were Iranian backed terrorists operating outside their own country. I imagine there are very few in the world grieving their loss, including the Lebanese themselves (and, of course, a bunch of antisemites and bleeding heart lefties who hate Israel even though they don’t really know why).

The estimated amount of explosive per device was 10-20g, that would be roughly .0001% of one of the smaller bombs dropped on Gaza-so yes, really really really tiny.

I can’t believe there is still so much support for Israel. They are completely out of control. Even Iran looks like the more mature party in comparison which is no mean feat!

@BellaBionda ,

I have posted on many threads that, as a secular Jew, I don’t approve of what a lot of Israel are doing (settling occupied areas, treatment of POWs, using large bombs in civilian areas).

However Israel has been for many years a liberal democracy, supportive of minority and women’s rights. I think Netanyahu and his coalition are starting to endanger what Israel is and should go, the sooner the better. But they are still a million miles better than many of their theocratic neighbours.

Israel is genuinely threatened and has every right to defend itself. Of course they should stick to the rules of war, but at least they can be pressured (by the U.S at least) and have to listen. There is also, you might have noticed, vocal opposition within Israel to a lot of what Israel is doing. You just won’t see that in Iran, Gaza or even Lebanon to Hezbollah, because they are too cowed by their leadership.

So, by all means criticise Israel when deserved, but this isn’t one of those times. This was a precision strike on enemy combatants with the very minimum of collateral damage. If the SAS had done it, we would be reading of their brilliance for months.

Because these terrorists are trying to kill Jews and that's A-OK in @Gogosmarty's book.

Let's be honest, people like that complain if Israel responds with bombs, they complain if Israel responds with ground operations, and they complain if Israel responds with targeted operations.

I don't know why they won't just say what they really think; that Israel shouldn't respond at all and should just sit quietly by while their enemies amass the firepower needed to take them out.

That stance would certainly be preferable to the one of faux outrage over the deaths of children we keep seeing. I mean children are being killed, maimed and worse in conflicts around the globe by supposed Christians in the South America and Europe to supposed Muslims in Africa and the Middle East, yet not a peep from anyone on here about them.

The moment Israel is involved however, they suddenly find the motivation to start threads and comment. I wonder what it is about Israel that triggers such a different response?

I disagree. Israel have been aggressors for decades and in my view have created terrorists coming out in Gaza themselves. They are destabilising the region and no one can critique them as you are then apparently an anti semite.

Orwellian indeed.

You do know Hezbollah are terrorists, right?

It is beyond belief that some still deny, despite irrefutable evidence, what is happening in Gaza. People can choose to ignore facts but that doesn't make them go away.

You do know that not supporting Israel’s actions doesn’t make you a Hezbollah or Hamaz supporter ?

@BellaBionda ,

‘You do know that not supporting Israel’s actions doesn’t make you a Hezbollah or Hamaz supporter ?’

If you don’t support a targeted action against a terrorist, it kind of does make you a terrorist supporter.

The alternative is to willingly allow terrorism…..unless you have a better idea?