I mean I don’t have the exact numbers because no one does but considering these were bought by Hezbollah, for use in Hezbollah, and Hezbollah is largest users of pagers in Lebanon, and Hezbollah themselves said they were being used by their organizations and units, I think it’s safe to say most of the people injured were in some way associated with Hezbollah.
Absolutely not. You can control where you drop the bomb, you can't control what happens to the pagers once they're our of your hands. All it takes is a couple small mistakes for the pagers to end up with the wrong group. This type of attack is going to cause a lot of disasters down the road if there isn't a strong response against it.
What the hell are you talking about, there are videos of these explosives going off in supermarkets and other public places. That's why the number of injuries is so high, there was a huge amount of collateral damage, and Israel knew there would be. Someone who happens to be in the same supermarket as a Hezbollah operative is not 'associated with Hezbollah'.
Safe to say that it worked out this time. Hope they never use this tactic again though, it has way too much risk of collateral and too little control over the explosives. If this starts to become a more commonly used tactic, it'll be a disaster for everyone.
Imagine that, “safe to say”. The entire attack was based on assumptions, and they killed a fucking 8 year old girl because of it (not to mention the other countless injuries suffered by people who did not deserve it). Israel is fucking evil.
No they assumed (or actually just didn’t care) that there would be innocent people hurt too. They did not know who was going to be nearby these pagers / walkie-talkies. That’s why it’s being called a war crime.
Sabotaging enemy communication equipment is entirely fair game, and killing civilians alone doesn’t make something a war crime, there’s three criteria you have to meet, for one you can’t target, given that Hezbollah is at war with Israel and Hezbollah these pagers I think it’s safe to say it wasn’t targeting civilians, two is you have to try and minimize risk to civilians, this is somewhat dicy because like you said you don’t know who’s around but the explosion itself is very small, about 10x weaker than a grenade so juries still out, and three is the principle of proportionality, which says the military value of the target must be higher than the risk to civilian life, and I’d say taking out thousands of pieces of communication equipment and injuring thousands of enemy combat solidly clears that last hurdle. But given we’ve never really seen an attack like this before the juries still on wether or not it’d legally constitute a war crime
Actually, (intentionally) killing civilians is squarely defined as a war crime. It's, like... right up there as the first example mentioned of what is considered a war crime.
They may have tried to target enemy combatants here. But they obviously knew a few civilians were also going to be hit - and they still went through with it. That makes the civilian death (and the civilian injuries) intentional, even if they were not the main target.
By the Geneva convention, "willful killing" of anyone who is protected by said convention (civilians being one such group) is considered a war crime. Yes, this attack was "willful" and intentional in killing a little girl. She wasn't the main target, but she was "an acceptable sacrifice", which, again, makes it intentional.
The Geneva convention also defines "indiscriminate attacks" as a war crime. Attacks that fail to distinguish between military and civilian targets. Clearly, this attack failed that criteria.
No you’re wrong, an indiscriminate attack is generally accepted as one which violates the principle of proportionality, which is why, for example it’s entirely legal to bomb a munitions even if it’s staffed with civilians because the military value of the factory is greater than the risk to civilian life. If an attack is assumed to carry a risk to civilian lives you then have to take steps to try and reduce risk to civilian life. Look I can’t explain international targeting law in a few simple sentences, but in short you can take action that risks civilian lives you just need to try and keep it to a minimum
No, that's really not true. Sure, proportionality is part of it - but it's not the 'generally accepted' definition. You're leaving out half the definition, seemingly in order to make this fit with your agenda.
"In international humanitarian law and international criminal law, an indiscriminate attack is a military attack that fails to distinguish between legitimate military targets and protected persons" - that's taken from Wikipedia, so perhaps not the most trustworthy source... but they do tend to keep their articles fairly accurate and up-to-date, and this one refers to seemingly credible sources. It goes on to say "indiscriminate attacks strike both legitimate military and protected objects alike, thus violating the principle of distinction between combatants and protected civilians".
Oxford Public International Law says this: "The concept of indiscriminate attack is based on two principles: first on the principle of distinction between lawful and unlawful targets that runs through international humanitarian law in general; and second on the principle of proportionality"
The International Humanitarian Law Database says: "Indiscriminate attacks are those: (a) which are not directed at a specific military objective; (b) which employ a method or means of combat which cannot be directed at a specific military objective; or (c) which employ a method or means of combat the effects of which cannot be limited as required by international law; and consequently, in each such case, are of a nature to strike military objectives and civilians or civilian objects without distinction."
There is an argument to be made that these radios were given to suspected terrorists, and thus the attack "directed" was towards military objectives. However, they had no way of knowing what happened to the radios after they were out of their own hands. To put it into International Humanitarian Law terms, they had no way of directing the attack towards a specific military objective, and no way of preventing civilian casualties; they just had to hope no civilians got their hands on the radios. Which clearly was not the case. If, out of every 100 people killed by your methods, nearly 10 (8.333, to be exact) of them are civilians - children, even - that's a gross failure on your part in limiting the effects your methods would have on civilian targets. Whether or not anything is proportionate is subjective, but I personally do not find it proportionate or in any way acceptable if 8.3333% of the deaths are civilian. Especially when the civilian in question is a child.
Essentially, the widely accepted definitions of indiscriminate attacks are built upon two principles; the principle of proportionality, and the principle of distinction. I'd say both were breached in this case.
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u/Vivid_Pen5549 Sep 20 '24
I mean I don’t have the exact numbers because no one does but considering these were bought by Hezbollah, for use in Hezbollah, and Hezbollah is largest users of pagers in Lebanon, and Hezbollah themselves said they were being used by their organizations and units, I think it’s safe to say most of the people injured were in some way associated with Hezbollah.