https://www.trtworld.com/middle-east/netanyahu-approved-pager-explosions-in-lebanon-israeli-media-18209416
PM Benjamin Netanyahu approved attack during security consultations with senior ministers and intelligence chiefs earlier this week, Israeli news website Walla reports, citing unnamed American officials.
Pagers, often used by civilians and healthcare workers for communication, are small, battery-powered wireless devices that receive text messages, audio, and visual signals.
Boy do I feel old now…
According to Walla, the operation "neutralised a significant part of Hezbollah's military command and control system."
This was the next sentence. My personal pity-party was subsequently cancelled.
A further linked article speculates that the pagers were rigged with explosives. As their main power source is an alkaline AAA battery. No crazy Mr. Robot hack, just regular depravity.
I mean thats all just according to the them. If we have learned anything about Israel, its that they like lying about the people they murder. There is already confirmation of civilian collateral damage.
At least this time around they were not targeting civilians, proving that it is possible, even for the Netanyahu regime. I don't have enough information to judge it yet (fuck Hezbollah, fuck Netanyahu), but there's at least little doubt it's better than what we've come to expect from Israel.
Now, time for my unsponsored content of the day: As amazing and hospitable as the Lebanese people are, their state is weak as fuck, their political system is a mess, and their economy is down the drain. There seems to always be several crises going on all at once in recent years. In this situation, non-governmental organizations tend to be the ones stepping up and filling the gap left behind by the state. If you are into giving money to charity, the Lebanese Red Cross would therefore be a good cause to consider. :)
they were not targeting civilians
No they were just doing the equivalent of dropping cluster munitions on a city full of civilians in the hope of hitting some militants. Its barely better than directly targeting civilians.
I thought it was pretty clearly implied in my post that I'm merely saying this operation is an improvement over bombing the shit out of refugee camps after declaring it safe zones, which is a low fucking bar.
I guess I was wrong.
"Targeting at random" is not the same as "not targeting civilians"
Thats the point that i wanted to clarify. You specifically DO accept and tolerate civilian deaths with this tactic.
It seems these pagers were actively used by Hezbollah though. It was a targeted attack where, for once, Israel's target was not the murder of a civilian population.
Whether it was well executed is a completely different question. Did they successfully strike their targets, rather than bystanders or people who happened to get the wrong pager? Were there civilian casualties (as it seems there was), and were those worse than in what we would expect from other types of military operations targeting terrorist organizations? The answers are not simple yes/no, but gradients. Which is different from their ongoing genocide in Gaza, where the cruelty is the entire point.
Saying an attack isn't targeting civilians is a long way from saying it is legitimate. But coming from a regime that has been actively targeting civilians for months claiming that there is simply no other way of doing things, I guess this is at least evidence that they are aware of alternatives.
Hezbollah is attacking Israel from the north, and it would be naïve to expect Israel not to strike back. This attack appears to have lead to fewer meaningless civilian deaths than what we have come to expect coming fram Israel. That is all.