Pagers and walkie talkies .....audacious and successful strike against terrorists

[mids2019]

If a large number of members of Al Quaeda or ISIS were killed with a precise attack I think in the West there would be admiration and indeed satisfaction that such a military success had occurred.

However I am disturbed by the reporting of the targeted neutralization of terrorists within Lebanon with even the main stream press virtually describing those struck as civilians and questioning the legality and morality of this! Have we lost our moral compassess?

There were some unfortunate civil an deaths but given the scale of the strike this was a terrible inevitability. However the civil an to combatant rratio was very small in reality as the explosions were kinky d to a personal zone. Yet when we read the press we allow terrorist propaganda calling the events a massacre of even that trumped up word 'genocide' that people seem to love.

If Osama bin Laden had been brought to a local hospital would we have allowed weeping doctors to lament his injuries? Thought not.

Don’t forget that they also shoot by mistake at innocent civilians. They throw people off the roofs by mistake. Kill aid worker by mistake. rape civilians by mistake. Detain civilians and torture them by mistake. Kill elderly women in churches by mistake.

all by mistake and that of course don’t worry the government / idf are investigating these incidents and we promise you it won’t happen again. It’s all love

This is the problem with language. This wasn’t an indiscriminate attack on children. This was an attack on people holding hezbollah pagers. They were not targeting children. Children are not the targets here. Reports suggest 32 Hezbollah fighters died and the vast majority injured were Hezbollah. The level of collateral damage was minimal. For the scale of impact that was a successful mission. That sounds cold but they are at war. People keep repeating this idea that there were mass civilian casualties but there weren’t. Even Hezbollah are not claiming that.

It’s a war, there will be collateral damage, that doesn’t sound nice at all does it. Do you think Hezbollah entered the war believing they wouldn’t kill Israeli children or that some Lebanese children wouldn’t die. People on here sound really detached from reality to me.

Hezbollah voluntarily started attacking Israel. Hezbollah said they will not stop bombing the north of Israel. Israel is not obliged to accept that just in case they accidentally kill a Lebanese citizen. When you are being bombed daily for almost a year you will respond. People talk about the radicalising of Gazans with each Israeli attack, what do you think happens to Israelis after something like 7th October? What happens when you have experienced a massive terror attack and then your neighbour to your north starts bombing you.

What is your solution? Nasrallah has clearly stated the bombing will not stop. Israel is left with the option to do nothing and just give up the north of Israel or try to stop it.

You can say something like “well Hezbollah are a bit naughty bombing Israel (with no control over who they hit btw) but Israel’s targeting Hezbollah fighters was awful”. Thats nice, have you solved the problem? Is there now peace in the middle east?

@mids2019 despite your posts being some of the more lengthy here, all you repeatedly seem to say is Hamas and Hizbollah = hate Israel and must be stopped. Israel = the good guys and must be able to defend themselves. Regardless of the atrocities people list, you blindly go for the defense line and any murder of civilians only happened because accident, unfortunate, human shield etc

Anything put in front of you whether it be from the UN, Amnesty, humanitarian organisations etc about the atrocities Israel is committing is ignored or must be Hamas propagana.

If people don’t support the Israeli government, they must be hamas / hizbollah supporters in your book, because you cannot fathom that you can support neither party and there is no right side in this conflict except for the civilian side.

I would be interested to know your view of the illegal occupation of Palestinian areas and Israel’s
policy over the decades, are you for a two state solution and how do you think we can get there? Do you want to recognise Palestine as a free state?

Israel has the right to defend themselves. So has the people of Palestine against Israel’s occupation. This is clear in International law. At the moment, both parties are breaking that law and this is what people are arguing.

Israel will never disarm its enemies. They are backed by Iran who will just keep supplying weapons. It’s a highly motivated enemy and for every terrorist Israel kills, new terrorists will be recruited. The more this conflict escalates, the more likely a full war in the region will be and it won’t be pretty and is also likely to reach our neck of the wood in terms of terror.

Exactly, according to journalist Barak Ravid: "U.S. officials told me they recognize Israel's "de-escalation through escalation" rational and agree with it, but stress this is an "extremely difficult calibration" that could easily go out of control and lead to an all-out war"
https://www.axios.com/2024/09/21/us-israel-lebanon-hezbollah-war-pressure-diplomatic-deal

In their initial response last night to Israeli actions, Hezbollah has just finished firing 6 rounds of rockets deeper into Israel, hitting targets as far as Haifa (focusing on the military base where the planes that bomb Lebanon take off from).

This is an escalation as they've moved from using rockets with a limit of 10km to larger ammunition with further reach. Sirens sounded for 6 hours.
The IDF (with no sense of irony) is complaining:
https://x.com/IDF/status/1837707589410255169

Though it could be asked what did they expect? De-escalation through escalation only works if your enemy fears you and if you have the capability to back it up strategically. Also lying about taking out rockets and launchers without actually doing so, leaves your enemy able to respond.

Israel is wrong, it’s simple, settlers should be jailed, detention without charge is wrong. It is not hard to see that. What I don’t understand though is why people struggle with the simple idea that when Hezbollah attacked Israel that Israel would respond. It is not a complicated idea.

It’s a war, there will be collateral damage

as long as you accept collateral damage from Israeli civilians side as well.
I’d prefer to be honest if there was no collateral damage from Lebanese or Israeli people

What people are telling is not that Israel can’t respond. What people are saying is that Israel must respond within the law and without committing war crimes.

not a single international organisation has congratulated Israel for this operation. In fact , they’re quite worried about it

Norway, Ireland and Spain recognise Palestine as its own free state.

So if Palestine is a state why would not harbour a hate filled group such as Hamas? Does a state act as a terrorist group? A stars has boundaries by definition and agreeing those boundaries would be a big step toward peace as you would have rule of law in such states. If you had bouldering the Palestinians that did truly believe Paelstine was a state and not have an ideology which only accepts a single state in which Israel becomes Paelstine you might get progress.

A two state solution and hence peace will only work when

(a) Israel accepts a two state solution
(b) Palestinians accept a two state solution
(c) Borders are agreed and there is security along those borders

To get the three above you have to remove an ideology which wants to remove Israel from existence and how do we go about achieving that?

Lebanon is a state and Israel is not at war with it. However Hizbolla h effectively use the state as a base to launch attacks on Israel. In effect Lebanon is a field state and has no power to curb a vicious Islamist terrorist group (or army) acting in its midst.

For Palestinians to have a functioning state (as possible have alluded to) then you can't have a recognised IN state that still harbours groups like Hamas that could launch attacks on Israel and wash its hands of it; in that event Israel would declare war on Palesrine, occupy it and you are back to square one just with an occupied IN chartered state.

Realistically you need to combat the ideology of Islraeli hate and take out extremists in parallel with forming a functioning Palestiinian state. If Palsetinains have state and the protection of a state then all the abuses alluded to earlier wouldn't happen.

I think a big question is how it you have a Palestinian state would you prevent war between Israel and Palestine as states? I think currently that may be an inevitability.

I agree with that, war crimes should not be acceptable. The booby trap rule is about not using things that attract or draw civilians, it doesn’t mean you can’t use bobbly traps. So setting out a stall with free food then bombing it when people come would be a straightforward example. i’m not convinced this meets that threshold, there was no effort to attract civilians for example. But thats for the lawyers to thrash out.

Indiscriminately bombing civilian populations like Hezbollah are doing is probably a war crime (except they have been evacuated so don’t know) there has to be a justification for it and it has to be proportional. Just bombing somewhere for no particular reason like an apartment block or residential area where civilians are present without any military necessity is clearly a war crime. There are definitely questions over Israels actions in Gaza, targeting of sites that have hamas members for example, is the military rationale for doing so justified and is the collateral damage proportionate.

It’s not really about whether you feel it’s a war crime or not from my understanding. Not every civilian death meets the threshold of war crime. Not liking something doesn’t make it a war crime, Things you may find abhorrent may be completely legal.

Im not an expert. But international organisations are and as mentioned above they’re quite worried about Israel’s actions and feel it won’t bring peace to the area ,

I think you are right for peaceful co-existence the basic ideology of Hamas which is that Israel has to be destroyed and the Jews leave or killed isn’t going to work. I mentioned on another thread a podcast interviewing an american who went to a hamas conference. They were talking about what they would do the day after they beat Israel, options on the table were “kill all the Jews” or “kill most of the jews but keep the clever ones to work for us”. I mean wtf do you do with that kind of thinking!? This was a conference. These people are mad, Palestinians definitely have cause for complaint but their leadership is insane.

The americans are now saying they suspect hamas doesn’t actually want a deal. In the last round the Israelis acceded to demands Hamas made and then Hamas that they still weren’t going to sign up. It’s all very well telling the Israelis there should be a ceasefire but the other side need to want it too.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran-update-september-20-2024

The United States does not expect Israel and Hamas to reach a ceasefire-hostage agreement in the coming months, according to the Wall Street Journal.[11] Anonymous US officials told the outlet that Hamas has made demands in the negotiations and then refused to accept a deal after the United States and Israel accepted those demands. This behavior has led international negotiators to doubt that Hamas seriously wants a deal. Senior US officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, have similarly questioned whether Hamas is sincerely looking to reach a deal.[12] The officials also cited disagreement between Israel and Hamas about hostage-prisoner swaps as an obstacle in negotiations. The officials added that Israel detonating pagers and personal radios owned by Lebanese Hezbollah members has further complicated diplomatic engagement with Hamas. An anonymous Arab official similarly said that there was “no chance” of a ceasefire-hostage agreement after Israel detonated the pagers and personal radios.

The americans are now saying they suspect hamas doesn’t actually want a deal.

does Nentanhayu actually want it?

My moral compass is this. I don't care if you're British, Ukrainian, Russian, Palestinian, Lebanese or Israeli, once you kill a child you have no right to consider yourself one of the good guys.

I'll let the rich and powerful draw up their borders and create division based on religions and imaginary lines drawn across the earth and I'll keep all of my sympathy for the civilians, on all sides, who get caught up in all of this shit.

That's pretty much the question posed from after October 7th and the difficult part

To get the three above you have to remove an ideology which wants to remove Israel from existence and how do we go about achieving that?
Or change the behaviour of the rogue state so that it’s existence is a positive thing?

Israel is the occupying force here actually. And they seem to do a pretty good job of wiping out the Palestinians…

@ohfook but that definition there's not a single country on earth who qualifies as one of the "good guys"

Yes that's my point. Powerful people letting millions die in their stupid battles all while trying to convince the populace that they're the ones with right on their side. Drawing up these divisions based on religion, land etc when I know for a fact that I have more in common with a mother in Israel, a mother in Palestine and a mother in Russia than I have in common with anyone making decisions about those countries.

Just like my own grandmother in the 1940s probably had far more in common with a German young wife and mother that she would've had with the governments of either of those countries.

Also while I'm ranting it infuriates me that people refuse to look at events in context in order to learn lessons from them. If the treaty of Versailles taught us anything it's that if you treat a population like absolute shit they will back someone, anyone, who will help them even if it's a fucking terrible idea. Yet here we are 80 years later surprised that we watched Israel treat an entire population like shit and now a group purporting to help them have some support even though they are undoubtedly also terrible.

"I agree with that, war crimes should not be acceptable. The booby trap rule is about not using things that attract or draw civilians, it doesn’t mean you can’t use bobbly traps. So setting out a stall with free food then bombing it when people come would be a straightforward example."

So, what the IDF were doing with aid in Gaza, then. Lure people in with "here's aid", then open fire on them. Which people rushed to defend at the time.

Your moral compass is non existent! Setting these devices to explode was not just an attempt to kill and maim ‘potential supporters of a terrorist group’. The people with these pagers could have been anywhere when they blew up - in a hospital, on a bus or train, in a busy street, at a school, in a place of worship - absolutely anywhere innocent members of the public happened to be.
We need to see the actions of the Israeli government for what is - terrorism, justifying indiscriminate killing, attempting to escalate the war across the middle east and beyond.

@Flibflobflibflob
Your point about the evacuation of Northern Israel is a good one. Hezbollah is actually quite targeted. It has killed bout 27 Israeli military and about the same number of civilians since last October. For context , although tragic for those people and their families, 276 Israelis have died in the roads in the same period.
So the Israeli attacks are about relocating the evacuees for political and economic reasons, not primarily to save lives.In fact after an initial outcry there was very little about the hit on the Druze soccer players who were about half the civilians killed by Hezbollah this year

Why on earth are there people on here saying ‘Israel is defending its own country’. Israel is an aggressor. Israel has taken over territory illegally and populated it with people shipped in from America in the main - do you listen to their accents when they are interviewed on TV or as members of the IDF?
The Israeli Government think they are untouchable as any criticism of Israel is seen as ‘anti semitic’.
Well - criticism of the Israeli Government is criticism of the Israeli Government - and right now, this is a committing genocide while the world watches.

I don't think I've ever seen anyone who is pro Israel admit that perhaps Israels behaviour, the illegal occupying, the apartheid, the stealing of resources, the behaviour of the settlers which is supported by the state, all of the 'whoops sorry we killed someone again but we will deffo look into that for you', the taking people and placing them in detention indefinitely with no trial/no fair trial and torturing them etc might actually contribute to the dislike of Israel in the region and indeed further afield.

It's always they hate Israel just for existing with no reflection on the fact that Israels behaviour has caused untold pain and suffering. You might get an 'ah yeah, I don't agree with occupation' but no real acknowledgement of what the illegal occupation means to the daily lives of those suffering under it and no suggestion of how Palestinians can get out from under it.

Although one thing is certain on this thread they don't seem to think 'targeted' device attacks on the 'legitimate target' that is the IDF is an acceptable way for Palestinians to deal with the situation. That's only something that is acceptable for Israel to do.