Anyone else confused about how these bombs are actually detonating? Articles say they are detonating via a text message sent 3x in error, theoretically causing either a spark or a “closed circuit” like a different article explained. The article (from al jazeera) says they have to look at the message but there’s video of one igniting in a bag.
I’m curious because I think these pagers may actually constitute a public safety risk, similar to how heavily landmined areas risk exploding even decades later on someone unrelated to the initial conflict.
Israel has a reckoning coming. The mercy they have shown is the mercy they will receive. I wish they would stop.
I wonder if we will ever find out who did it
College campuses across the US/Canada will be holding memorial services, no doubt.
RIP Taiwanese electronic device export economy.
Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, was among those injured by the pager explosions on Tuesday, Iran’s Mehr news agency reported.
Attacking ambassadors is a great way to become an international piriah.
What was ambassador doing with Hezbollah exclusive pager?
Why did he have the pager tho?
Hezbollah is a legitimate political party in Lebanon, with millions of voters.
It just says he was injured, which could happen if you were in close proximity to someone wearing one of the pagers. News here showed one of the explosions occurring in a grocery store, with plenty of people nearby, for example.
Ambassador, communication device …
Communication with whom? These pagers were ordered by Hezbollah.
Obviously for getting in touch with them. That’s what ambassadors do. Anyway, doesn’t matter, Israel will never have a use for ambassadors.
an eight-year-old girl was among those killed
And what was she doing with it? /s
Great, can’t wait for the conspiracy theories from this one.
Bibi really wants a war with Hezbollah, doesn’t he? I mean you can’t call it defending Israels safety anymore when you provoke any and all responses every other month with a missile here, a bomb there and now thousands of bombs everywhere. This is just another measure to keep Netanyahu in a conflict so that he doesn’t have to bear the consequences of multiple corruption cases against him and the dissolving of his coalition outside unity cases in a war. Why is Europe and the US still covering for him? What is the rest of Israel doing?
He wants the US at war before the sea change. once elected or close enough to it Harris can change her tune.
During the last month there were not 1, not 10, not 100 but 807 alerts in Israel for missile attacks. Some of them weren’t fired by Hezbollah, and some might have been the same alert in different areas, but that’s still about 7 missile PER DAY even if we assume only 1 in 4 alerts was due to an attack by Hezbollah (side note: during the entire war, about 2,000 missile were launched from Lebanon to Israel, that’s an average of about 6 per day). In addition to this, there were 452 aircraft intrusion alerts. Most of these attacks are against civilian targets.
Right now, there are about 79 thousand people (around 0.8% of total population) who are still evicted for nearly a year from northern Israel.
And just in case it needs to be said - the first attack was made by Hezbollah (on Oct. 8th) and without any provocation by Israel.
Not only is this a situation no sovereign country can stand, but it’s also a violation of the Lebanon-approved UN Security Council’s resolution 1701, that was the basis for ending the 2006 Lebanon War. Hell, just having missiles in the area is by itself a violation of the resolution.
Regarding political reasoning - A war in Lebanon is actually bad for Netanyahu. His interest is a slow-burning war so he can prolong the current situation as much as possible (once the war is over, the pubic will demand an election). In fact, that’s probably the main reason you had “a missile here and a bomb there” and not an actual war.
A war in Lebanon is actually bad for Netanyahu. His interest is a slow-burning war so he can prolong the current situation as much as possible
The current situation is that he’s in a war in Gaza and that is keeping him in office. He can still spin this as “we are fighting against an existential threat”. Rocket defence and retaliation strikes aka the slow burning war in Lebanon is not enough for the Israeli society to unite behind Bibi. Only if they seriously attack. And I think Netanyahu wants to provoke such an attack.
Sending thousands of bombs God knows where they land is not a proper defense. It’s a huge escalation where Hezbollah will answer. I think the best argument against this strike has been thrown around everywhere: What if Hezbollah made such an attack where 3000 bombs where sent to IDF people. We would talk about a terrorist attack. Why is that different now?
It’s war they wanted and it’s what they have. Couldn’t make it work in 75 years. We’ve heard enough and seen enough, nobody gets the benefit of the doubt in this. And I’m scared to even post this mild critic will make me an information warfare target. So tired of this shit.
Mark my words… us will be helping Israel with troops on this one.
Because fuck American taxpayer pussy… We got a genocide in Levant to get done 🫡
Israel might be the baddies…
Oh shit… Let me call the police about this! Sure thing! Right away!
Wait a minute!
LOL! You think I’m that stupid? You call them! Here, take my phone! I’m just gonna go hide behind that 1" thick steel wall! Oh, should we just run over to the station? It’s safer that way.
Whats scarey here is the amount if energy stored in smart phones. Pagers hold a fraction of the energy and the application here to the smart phone is the same.
If you see the video there is no way a battery behaves like that, even if you drive a nail into them they more rocket flames than explode (I used to work in a battery lab).
I should clarify, typical cells won’t explode, you could defeat safety features for pressure release in a can cell but at that effort they would have just added something more energetic.
I doubt the lab experience.
Lithium ion batteries do explode, off-gassing and pressure alone can do significant damage when contained. While typically closer to a thermite reaction, conditions determine damage which have been killing people from either heat or poisonous gas. I can point to state occuption work regulators that have a documented case of an explosion while plenty of deaths from battery fires can be found in the news.
I read in a NYT headline that they were pagers with explosives added in.
Here’s the article I saw but didn’t read.
Upvoted for the honesty
This is definitely one of the most interesting attacks that’s ever happened. It certainly doesn’t look like an accident. If it was indeed Mossad: take a bow, you’ve earned it. That was a pretty slick move. That was probably a difficult op to pull off. Gotta respect the craft, even if you disagree on the method.
How exactly did they pull that off? And with walkie-talkies too. There’s no way you can do that with normal RF. The only thing I can figure is they had to intercept the devices and tamper with them in some way.
Its not rocket science how they did it. What is the impressive part? Are we really just going to say civilians don’t matter? Is it impressive to you because of how many people were hurt?
In no way is it required to respect the craft or the method.
I wonder if you wouldve said the same thing about 9/11
9/11 targeted and killed civilians. This attack largely struck Hezbollah militants, who are in open hostilities with Israel. Doing things this way is far better than the seemingly indiscriminate bombing in Gaza.
You know not everyone in Hezbollah is a « militant » right? They have a large political party and civilian governance apparatus. This is terrorism, nothing new to Israel.
And I’m sure Islamic State and the Taliban have non-combatant elements too.
I don’t mind Israel defending against militant groups that fire rockets into Israel. I do mind them carpet-bombing civilian populations. This pager-thing seems to have the hallmarks of an operation that manages to cripple Hezbollah with a minimal loss of life and even fairly low civilian casualties. I much prefer Israel do this over the alternatives.
As does america have non-combat elements too.
The US army does indeed, and they would be valid military targets. People working for the EPA, perhaps not so much. Hezbollah however is structured towards support for the militant arm, as the Lebanese government handles civilian tasks.
To take this to it’s logical extreme, how do you feel about assassination attempts on high ranking Nazi officials? They’re non combatants, after all.
Militants specifically use these pagers for security and stealth. Everyone else just uses phones.
It’s a brilliant way to target only combatants, and also expose them to their friends and neighbours. This attack is incredibly disruptive with very little collateral damage compared to alternatives.
And yes, it’s terrorism, an attack meant to inspire terror and disrupt communication networks with a chilling effect much larger than the actual damage. However it’s interesting as unlike most terrorism it does not target civilians.
It’s also terrifying to think we are living in a world where a malicious component attack is a legitimate concern. This is one of those moments that change the world - I’m sure every industry is thinking about the danger of their foreign supply chain right now.
unlike most terrorism it does not target civilians.
Also, unlike most of the IDF attacks.
IDF is closer to waffen SS than a terror cell…
Oh so everyone there who had a pager must have been a bad guy. Got it, solid logic. Can’t wait for the war to spread further.
I was about to say, they’re fucked in the head, but goddamn that was ingenious.
None dare call it Terrorism.
Why is it okay for them to bomb Lebanon as well?
Because Arab lives have no value in Israeli society.
Because Arab lives have no value in
Israeliwestern society.FTFY.
To be fair, Jewish lives also only matters to the west if they are busy murdering brown people.
Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of violence against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological aims.
While it’s likely there were civilians hurt by this, the target was undeniably Hesbollah. So no, not terrorism.
In other words, Israel’s very existence is an act of terrorism.
Likely because the bulk of those wounded by this attack were not Hezbollah
I don’t even know how you’d reasonably expect to only injure your targets in an attack as widespread and remote as this one. Seems blatantly indiscriminate at best.
Likely because the bulk of those wounded by this attack were not Hezbollah
What makes you think that? These pagers were bought by Hesbollah to be used by their guys.
Uhhh, because these were bombs - bombs that were remotely and indiscriminately detonated. Some of the people were driving, some standing next to children or on busses full of people. There are reports of children who died because they were standing next to a target at head-level with the pager.There’s no guarantee they were even being carried by “Hezbollah’s guys”.
I don’t even know why anyone would assume otherwise. This was a loosely targeted terror attack
At least 12 people were killed after the attacks,[60][1][61] and more than 2,750 were wounded.[5][6] Civilians were also killed,[10][13][14] including four healthcare workers[62] and two children.[63] It is not clear if only Hezbollah members were carrying the pagers.[19] Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad said the vast majority of those being treated in emergency rooms were in civilian clothing and their Hezbollah affiliation was unclear.[64] He added the casualties included elderly people as well as young children. According to the Lebanese Health Ministry, healthcare workers were also injured and it advised all healthcare workers to discard their pagers.[64][65]
These pagers were bought by Hesbollah
All we know is that a bunch of exploding pagers were distributed through Lebanon. The IDF claims they were given to Hezbollah agents, but they’ve been caught lying regularly.
Because anyone within 5 meters of the pager also was hurt.
Stunning that you’re being downvoted. This was a brilliant attack on a group that actually attacks Israel actually indiscriminately on the daily.
I would agree with this if they somehow only harmed Hezbollah severely. That was not the case.
I agree, but it’s still a step up from dropping a laser guided bomb on a 10 storey apartment building because somebody in Hamas might be there.
I guess.
National order isnt based on tit for tat. If someone commits a war crime against you it doesnt mean you get to do it too.
In my opinion the time of day they chose to blow them shows they wanted as much collateral damage as they could.
What’s the advantage of making excuses for committing war crimes?
Is there any time of day it’s not atrocious? Seems like any time would have basically equal risk for collateral casualties.
To be effective it all had to be at once. It seems that they waited until the pagers were being used to coordinate a fresh wave of rocket attacks with promises of more to come before setting them off.
Is there any time of day it’s not atrocious? Seems like any time would have basically equal risk for collateral casualties.
Then maybe it shouldn’t be done at all.
Maybe all an army has to do to take over the entire world is being their families to the front. Can’t shoot back at them because their families are there. So they pretty much win every engagement. Problem solved. No more wars.
At a certain point it stops being worth it. If sending a brainwashed 11 yo to blow up a checkpoint means you can no longer trust having any technology near you, your family and friends it might cause hesitation.
Jews and cops are always in the wrong on this platform.
There you go conflating Jews and Israel. Apart from that you have an arguable point.
Israelis and cops just doesn’t sound as snappy.
It’s less antisemitic though. Please don’t conflate Jewish people with Israel, it’s caused enough problems as it is.
Israel is a terrorist organization. Radical, fundamentalist Jewish terrorism.
This goes to show that Israel could have taken out Hezbollah leadership at any time… there was no need to raze Palestine other than to move people out so that Israelis can move in and rebuilt.
Israel has assassinated a staggering number of high ranking Hamas officials, less so for Hezbollah but their leadership has also been targeted
Hezbollah is not Hamas.
Aren’t you confusing Hezbollah with Hamas though?
He did. But the proponents of Greater Israel do actually include Lebanon. They also include Jordan, Syria, parts of Egypt, Parts of Saudi Arabia, and parts of Iraq.
This ideology is dominant in the ruling party of Israel.
Shit, you’re right… thanks, I’ve corrected it because my point still stands.
does it still stand? are Hamas using the same supply chain of altered pagers?
signs point to no.
Yes, it still stands… if Mossad is able to get to Hezbollah’s leadership that completely, I think they are likely more than capable of doing the same with Hamas’ leadership.
I’m sure Israel caught a lucky break through whoever they had in Taiwan, to get this opportunity.
I’m no fan of Hezbollah but how is this different than spreading land mines? Even if you kill civilians in an air strike at least you can claim there were enemy combatants there. Here it is just “Eh, we’ll just kill people at random and see what happens.”
These were pagers specifically ordered by Hezbollah. Random civilians wouldn’t have had them.
So that kid was Hezbollah too then?
Thousands of peoples were wounded. And by the nature of a pager you do wear them when out and about and not only at the HQ
There’s thousands of Hezbollah militants as well. We don’t know yet exactly how targeted the attack was.
Regardless “only” 9 people died so far. Thousands were wounded, but that’s much better than land mines would’ve been. This attack was extraordinarily targeted, and despite there being civilians hurt, they’re likely to be less hurt than the militants and unlikely to be among the dead. Every civilian death is a tragedy, but Hezbollah and Israel are in an armed conflict. Some civilian deaths are unavoidable. I much prefer Israel do this than the indiscriminate bombing on Gaza.
That’s still a lot more targeted than the air strike example.
One of the deaths was a kid
How many injuries, I wonder.
It is extremely cool that we continue to take “Everyone wounded by these pagers was Hezbollah” at face value once again.
This, from the same organization that bombed hospitals, schools, and refugee camps while insisting every one of them was a Hamas command center.
Ah, yes, the 2758 people were all Hezbollah.
Most likely most of them were though. I mean I don’t think many people outside Hezbollah were using pagers, not to mention that most likely they tampered one or two batches of them only.
I am just wondering what the official government of Lebanon is thinking about this incident because in my opinion that’s a huge blow into the sovereignty of a foreign country. Imagine something similar happens in Israel or the US, do you think those countries would sit on the diplomatic table and negotiate?
They’re already at war though.
The problem with explosions is that they injure everyone nearby, not just the person with the explosion in their pocket.
You can look up the videos. People standing three feet away are fine while the person with the pager is down for the count. Innocents are always harmed in war, but this was about as precise and just a strike as humanly possible.
I’m sure that’ll make that girl’s friends and remaining family feel much better.
The explosions had to happen at the same time to be effective, and so people who were being attacked were in a variety of places. Detonating explosives in an uncontrolled variety of public places is not precise.
Agree, but the explosive inside is very low, so the damage is mostly going to be inflicted on the person who this pager belonged to. From the initial reports all the casualties were linked to Hezbollah and even the girl was a daughter of a member of Hezbollah.
Me personally, I don’t defend the actions of Israel, but still think it is a lot more targeted than dropping 2000lbs. bombs over densely populated areas. Another question is of course if this will achieve anything other than strengthening the resolve of those people.
Unfortunately, nowadays to win a war, you simply need to be the richer and more advanced nation, and Israel has the upper hand here.
That “even the girl was a daughter of a member of Hezbollah” part got me very angry.
Kids don’t deserve to get blown up, even if their parents are mass murderers.
Most would blame the mass murdering parent for endangering the child.
I have never said that. What Israel is doing geopolitically is a grave mistake and would ultimately give birth to a lot more terrorists that they will kill ultimately and won’t lead to any long lasting peaceful solution in the region. And all this is happening with the silent endorsement of the West, which is even more disturbing.
Has that been verified?
Of course not.
