10-year-old Fatima Jaafar Abdullah was killed in pager explosions in Lebanon.

Israel murders another kid again.

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74 points
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I believe the devil’s advocate argument would be that, based on Hezbollah’s internal communications, the Mossad intercepted a shipment of pagers which were being purchased to replace their (potentially compromised) mobile phones, knowing that these were - in theory - being distributed exclusively to Hezbollah operatives. That would make it the most precise military strike of all time.

Everyone who launches a rocket is accepting the possibility of “collateral damage”, but this is surely the most surgical of surgical strikes in history. And yet, yes, they must have accepted the risk of bystander casualties, which just serves to highlight how awful that logic is. It’s definitely not worse than randomly firing into a crowd, though.

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48 points

That would make it the most precise military strike of all time.

Pretty sure that honor still goes to the R9X Slap Chop. The pager explosions, on the other hand, injured thousands.

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14 points

Fat electrician had a great video on this.

Soo accurate that if the target is in a car you need to know what seat.

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2 points

I guess I should have qualified that to exclude individual assassinations, otherwise you’d have to include snipers and whatever. I almost don’t believe that “knife missile” is real (quotation marks because the only real knife missiles are Culture technology).

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2 points

I really don’t get it. Other than the “WAOW” factor, this certainly can’t have been a good use of resources for Israel.

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16 points

They already believed their communications were being intercepted so switched to another method.

That method then literally blew up in their pockets.

The amount of fear and distrust of the supply chain can’t be overstated.

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10 points

In which world getting thousands of Hezbolla operatives unwittingly keeping a bomb in their pocket would not be a good use of resources for Israel?

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24 points

I feel like people are missing one of the more heinous aspects of this, which is that it injured thousands of people and only managed to kill ~10 of their targets. The outcome of this attack is going to be general terror and potentially hundreds of life altering injuries but very little military advantage.

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1 point
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The advantage is huge. 1000s of militants are now seriously injured and are no longer battle ready. Many will never be again. Massive success for Israel, and one of the most precision strikes ever used. Now there will be fear from any communication devise exploding, there will be 1000s of man hours wasted taking other stuff apart to check it, and morale will be down as well.

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4 points

Now westerners will worry when lining up for concerts or flights and the increased security expenditure will impact their economy

I guess you support ISIS terror attacks as a brilliant play too?

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1 point

How did the compromised pagers not trigger warnings at airport X-rays? I guess lithium batteries and C4 look similar?

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-1 points

How did something that only killed 10 targets injure thousands, especially when you are considering explosives.

I don’t think I could injure 1000s of civilians with only 10 targets killed with an explosive hidden on their person if I tried.

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-3 points

They injured thousands of their targets, killed a few, and only got very little collateral damage

Nasrallah would shit down his prophet’s throat to get this kind of outcome

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14 points

Correct.

Killing civilians isn’t a war crime. Deliberately killing civilians, or not taking reasonable steps to minimize civilian casualties is a war crime.

“Small” explosive that is embedded in something passed to and likely worn by the target is unlikely to be a war crime. If they somehow snuck a 1000lb bomb into one it absolutely would be however.

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16 points

Booby trapping objects associates with daily civilian use is a war crime

These pagers were distributed to doctors and nurses, so I would also argue that they were booby trapping medical supplies, which are protected.

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-3 points

Close - you’re looking at letter, not action and intentions.

Booby traps are banned for use in ways that are likely to be used by civilians and remove protections on the civilian population. Things like placing explosives on public transport, the side of the road, in marketplaces or protected places. Targeted strikes, like on a piece of civilian equipment that is likely to only be used by the target (cellphone, personal vehicle, laptop) are permitted as they are unlikely to be set off by a random civilian.

What is a question, however, is if the targets were actually combatants.

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-2 points

Turns out they weren’t.

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-6 points

It’s literally a war crime to attack people who are not actively participating in combat. That includes people who are members of your enemy’s military.

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44 points

That includes people who are members of your enemy’s military.

No, members of an enemy’s military are combatants regardless of whether they’re holding a gun or in a firefight at the time. The only exception is personnel such as chaplains and medics.

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4 points

How do you have less votes than the wrong person?

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2 points

Hmmm I guess with Israel having a conscript army then rocket barrages aren’t acts of terrorism. If a large portion of the country is considered “combatants” then any non-coms can be written off as “acceptable collateral damage”.

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-2 points
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On the prohibition of indiscriminate attacks:

“© those which employ a method or means of combat the effects of which cannot be limited as required by this Protocol; and consequently, in each such case, are of a nature to strike military objectives and civilians or civilian objects without distinction.”

https://www.justsecurity.org/81351/the-prohibition-on-indiscriminate-attacks-the-us-position-vs-the-dod-law-of-war-manual/

It’s important to note that this is the consensus of much of the international community and the US (and I presume its surrogate Israel) have not signed on to the above provision despite speaking to support it. The weasely approach we (the US) have taken to these standards really demonstrates how hollow our sentiments are when we feign moral authority in international affairs.

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-3 points

18 U.S. Code § 2441 - War crimes

Prohibited conduct: “(D) Murder.— The act of a person who intentionally kills, or conspires or attempts to kill, or kills whether intentionally or unintentionally in the course of committing any other offense under this subsection, one or more persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including those placed out of combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause”

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2441

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25 points

It is a war crime to intentionally attack non-combatants.

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12 points

Which explains why the IDF has had so many “accidents” recently.

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3 points

That is absolutely not true. An easy example to disprove your argument would be the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941. The American Navy was caught completely by surprise. At the end of the war, there were some Japanese tried for war crimes, but not for the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor.

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0 points

I’m willing to argue that the unprovoked attack on Pearl Harbor was replete with war crimes by modern standards. I’ve cited some documentation above. Since doing that I’ve learned that there are also specific prohibitions against booby-trapping: https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/ccw-amended-protocol-ii-1996/article-7 Turns out that Israel has violated many international standards for war crimes and terrorism. It’s simple mystifying to me that any of this is controversial.

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-2 points

That would make every crime a war crime going back thousands of years where they would lay siege on villages until the citizens starved

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-2 points

Yes?

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