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)

Give over!

Now you say bombs are better. Honestly, if Israel could give a terrorist a quiet but lethal injection on a park bench in Hebron, after dropping off their kids at school, I can only imagine you would be concerned for the "mental health of their grandkids" or some other touchy feely shite to tarnish Israel in other ways.

@Kendodd may be it’s better not to blowup people, full stop

@TeatimeForTheSoul

It targets whoever is holding or is near to it at the time. How do you ensure who has it? Did you see the little boy’s funeral. Disgusted you are justifying a little boys death. Do you have a son?

Yes, two. Both know what 'indiscriminate' means. Get off with your hyperbole and ridiculous with your implication of justification

Good question - to a degree, you can at least see your target and you actively make the decision to release it knowing the situation on the ground at the time.

With these, they did not know where the pager would be when it exploded,

Yeah this, put aside emoting about your feeling for a moment and think about it. They managed to basically destroy large chunks of their enemies communication structures, impair a bunch of fighters (didn’t even kill them) with minimal casualties.

If they had tried to do that with actual bombs they would have had to wipe out large parts of Beirut taking a lot of people with Hezbollah.

This was surgical, anyone who’s seen the videos will understand. It’s actually a very low death count with a very high impact. This wasn’t indiscriminate at all, it was extremely targeted. Pagers were specifically bought for Hezbollah, they intercepted them before they were distributed (these weren’t distributed willy nilly, they were specifically to replace phones as a method of coms for hezboallah).

We don’t have those wars where two sides line up against each other on a battlefield anymore. A lot of wars are now in population centres. This is one way of taking a bunch of people out of action (not dead mind) without having to use more destructive methods.

Hezbollah are Iranian proxies controlling Lebanon. I don’t think most Lebanese are overly fond of them tbh. They also provided Assad help against Syrians, nice bunch.

You don't get it.

Did they know where the pagers would be when they sent the signal to blow up?

They assumed that it would be in the hands of the terrorists. But they couldn't know that.

They could have been in other places where an explosion could have made the civilian casualties much worse because of the situation.

'With these, they did not know where the pager would be when it exploded,'

Yes they did. With the aficionados of the terror organisation who would happily wipe out every single Jew in Israel.

Completely agree.
If only. both sides, would just stop killing each other.

Are we really at the point where people defend a genocidal government who sends explosives out into a populace in a neighbouring country because it’s ’not as bad’ as dropping bombs on refugee camps?
Imagine if Lebanon had done this to Israel in opposition to the genocide. Would you still defend it?

I think the purpose here was to disrupt communications. They didn’t put enough in there to kill everyone with a pager. If the aim is to make Hezbollah wary of any bit of kit they use at comms then job done. If they wanted to actually kill them they could have but a bit more explosive in, but they didn’t. There were 5000 pagers in that batch apparently, how on earth would they be able to target 5000 pagers with rockets without killing a bunch of people?

I think they had a pretty good idea were they'd be, in the pockets of Hezbollah members.

Except it isn't. Israel is not at war with Lebanon but has conducted a terrorist attack on their soil as stated by the Belgium PM and a high ranking official from the EU. I tend to agree.

Tbh I’m more pro this than the seemingly indiscriminate bombing they have been doing for the past year or so. The latter of which I am vehemently against.

So sorry OP I think near the complete opposite.

It's a blatant violation of international law and something that Western society would have unanimously viewed as plainly, obviously morally wrong maybe 20 years ago. Yet the first two pages are full of supporters for Israeli terrorism. It's utterly chilling what blind support for Israel has done to people's sense of right and wrong.

Exactly. Thankfully most comments I heard on the radio earlier were against Israel's actions. .

"random"... What has been happening on Israel's northern border since October? Why have tens of thousands of civilians been forced out of their homes there? Why have fires been raging all across the region? Did a Druze kids' football team just drop down dead by chance? I just can't understand why people comment with such confidence when you really haven't got a clue... it's wild.

If the UK had come up with this sort of James Bond shit to take out blood thirsty nutters like ISIS fighters, I'd be all for it.

Don't waste your time getting onto Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. You will run out of lifelines and logic will defeat you.

I suggest you google it, I’m not doing work for someone who seems to be pro Israel, which I think is an indefensible, inhuman stance after almost a year of horrific genocidal violence we’ve watched happen in real time, and can’t be ignored.

This, it's a complete rogue state

This is so odd

I would point out this is military kit for them. You don’t hand out your personally issued military kit where you will be receiving instructions etc. please go look at the actual video of some of these explosions. Just go watch it, then you will understand. People were literally standing right next to people whos oagers went off and were unharmed. It’s actually an extraordinary bit of intelligence activity.

Yes. Just a vivid imagination with zero knowledge or experience of human war.

Did they know that all those pagers would end up there?

Yes, they did - the shipment was ordered by and for hezbollah. What don't you understand about that? Mossad tracked the whole shipment from order to delivery and knew they were very going to be distributed to terrorists - or you think maybe hezbollah ordered a load of pagers for their 'fighters' and then on a whim decided to hand them out randomly at the supermarket?!

@Yazzi
Oh, and I have no 'blind support' of Israel. I think their leaders belong infront of the ICC for their actions in Gaza. Had the perpetrators of the October attacks had their bollocks blown off with exploding pagers I'd be raising my glass to them though.