BEIRUT, Oct 16 (Reuters) - The batteries inside the weaponised pagers that arrived in Lebanon at the start of the year, part of an Israeli plot to decimate Hezbollah, had powerfully deceptive features and an Achilles’ heel.
The agents who built the pagers designed a battery that concealed a small but potent charge of plastic explosive and a novel detonator that was invisible to X-ray, according to a Lebanese source with first-hand knowledge of the pagers, and teardown photos of the battery pack seen by Reuters.
To overcome the weakness - the absence of a plausible backstory for the bulky new product - they created fake online stores, pages and posts that could deceive Hezbollah due diligence, a Reuters review of web archives shows.
The stealthy design of the pager bomb and the battery’s carefully constructed cover story, both described here for the first time, shed light on the execution of a years-long operation which has struck unprecedented blows against Israel’s Iran-backed Lebanese foe and pushed the Middle East closer to a regional war.
Bulky pager is a fun way to spin terrorism. Let me try.
How Al Qaeda’s surprise itinerary shocked New Yorkers
I don’t know if this can considered terrorism, the same way I don’t consider car bombs driven into coalition FOBs in Iraq or Afghanistan, or roadside IEDs and VBIDs that killed soldier on patrol, as terrorism.
If you’re targeting military personnel, it’s not terrorism. But, if you’re doing it in a way that unnecessarily causes collateral damage, too much collateral damage, etc., that’s a war crime. Which I believe this was.
I can understand the argument that considers this terrorism, and I’m not putting down this flag saying that my understanding of it is right and yours is wrong. Just explaining my current view of the situation.
But at this point, I’m not sure it makes any difference. Israeli troops, and settlers, are regularly committing unquestionable acts of terrorism and war crimes on a daily basis, so what difference does it make classifying this one incident as terrorism, or just another war crime.
It is textbook terrorism. Imagine being in the supermarket shopping for produce when suddenly the person standing next to you has their legs blown off… Would “terror” be a good description of how that would likely make someone feel?
It’s just state-sponsored, which is why it was more sophisticated than what we’re used to seeing from non-state actors. Which makes it even worse.
Terrorism is more about the intent rather than the result. Did Israel intend to instill terror in the civilian population or did they genuinely try to target Hezbollah militants (and perhaps didn’t care much about any civilian casualties)?
Totally with you. Edit (until the end, then I have a different conclusion about semantics) They attempted a military strike, on militants. There was a ton of collateral damage, and the method inherently put non combatants at risk. That’s war crime, and that’s already bad enough. The semantics matter and I personally believe “war crime and wonton disregard for collateral damage” is the most effective description.
The 9/11 hijackers did something different, they explicitly tried to hunt civilians.
To be clear, I’m not condoning or defending Israel’s actions one bit.
You might have missed my point at the end, but I’m not sure at this point if semantics do matter.
If this was a singular event, or one of several events, they obviously would.
But after a year of daily war crimes and terrorism by the IDF, I genuinely don’t know if it actually matters whether or not this one event should be categorized as terrorism, or just a war crime.
Agree with everything else you said, but I wanted to lead with that part first since I crammed in at the bottom of my last comment.
I wonder if the coverage of these pager attacks would be quite so complimentary on their ingenuity if it struck targets in Europe, with >25% civilian collateral, including aid-workers, children and members of neighbouring countries.
Probably not. No one credits Al-Qaeda’s ingenuity with using planes as ad-hoc cruise missiles.
I do. It was very clever and they achieved every long-term strategic goal of the attacks, short of the destruction of the US (which may well be pending).
But yes, I get your point, Westerner lives are special and sacred, because history is only still happening in other places. When we die all logic must shut off.
>25% civilian collateral
Is there a source on this? The initial coverage made it sound like it was maybe 10%.
Are you counting injuries or just deaths?
As of 22 September 2024, the death toll from the attacks was 42, including at least 12 civilian deaths. More than 3,500 people were injured.
At least 12 people were killed in the first wave of attacks, including civilians such as two health workers, a 9-year-old girl and an 11-year-old boy. The adult son of Ali Ammar, a Hezbollah member of Parliament was killed; Prime Minister Najib Mikati visited southern Beirut to pay his respects. More than 2,750 people were wounded. In the second wave on 18 September, at least 30 people were killed and 750 others were injured. One eye doctor at Mount Lebanon University Hospital reported that a number of those injured showed signs of something being blown up directly in their face, with some losing one or both eyes, while others had shrapnel in their brains. The Lebanese health ministry reported that 300 people had lost both eyes and 500 people had lost one eye as a result of the pager attacks. Other doctors saw severe hand, waist and facial injuries, reporting patients with fingers torn, hands amputated, eyes popped out of the socket and facial lacerations.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Lebanon_pager_explosions
Thanks! I was thinking of injured, clearly.
Interesting that by deaths, civilians are a much larger share. It makes sense in that it would take less to blow up a kid, so in the rare cases they were handling the top-secret Hezbollah pager it was more likely to be fatal. (Welcome to war, where kids are reduced to a physics problem)
I’m still not sure why this is the one people are hung up on, when there’s a plethora of clear-cut IDF warcrimes to choose from.
This was an excellent read and actually good journalism
There’s no kill like overkill, I guess. I have a feeling it would have taken years for Hezbollah logistics to figure it out even with none of that stuff.
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https://www.reuters.com/graphics/ISRAEL-PALESTINIANS/HEZBOLLAH-PAGERS/mopawkkwjpa/
