Israel - Palestine discussion thread

[Touring Mars]

Another 9 killed and at least 300 hundred more injured as a second wave of attacks hit Lebanon.

This time it was walkie-talkies that exploded simultaneously across the country.

Death toll in Lebanon walkie-talkie explosions rises to 20, with more than 450 injured – Middle East crisis as it happened

Rising number of deaths comes as White House says US not involved in wave of explosions ‘in any way’

www.theguardian.com

 

[inCloud]

What you pretend is that Israel knew that these pagers were going straight to known terrorists having been ordered in bulk by known terrorists.

Do you know many people who using pagers these days? For personal use.

We can clearly see the dead children in the area affected.

1 dead children per 3000+ terrorists?

 

[Danoff]

Another 9 killed and at least 300 hundred more injured as a second wave of attacks hit Lebanon.

This time it was walkie-talkies that exploded simultaneously across the country.

Death toll in Lebanon walkie-talkie explosions rises to 20, with more than 450 injured – Middle East crisis as it happened

Rising number of deaths comes as White House says US not involved in wave of explosions ‘in any way’

www.theguardian.com

You can see Israel's thinking pretty clearly here. They're trying to disrupt communications within terrorist organizations who are avoiding using phones. Apparently Hezbollah instructed members to avoid using cell phones because of how easily they can be tracked, so these alternative means of communication were relied upon.

The idea is probably to kill some terrorists (and inflict plenty of collateral damage), but also to cut off communications by terrorizing the population against certain means of communication. They want to prevent terrorists from using these devices by making the entire population afraid of those devices. If they use phones, those can presumably be tracked somehow. If not, Israel will just blow up whatever device that is and force you back to phones.

Do you know many people who using pagers these days? For personal use.

1 dead children per 3000+ terrorists?

2 out of 12 of the dead were kids. We do not know how many of the 3000 were kids. How many of the adults were non-terrorists? You do not know. What we do know is that the kids were not terrorists. Stop trying to see what you want in the data.

 

[Sprite]

Do you know many people who using pagers these days? For personal use.

Lots of medical professionals use them. Albeit not for personal use but that doesn’t matter, if they added explosives to 3000 pagers, they had no way of knowing how many would be handed/sold to the general populace and intended target.

 

[Danoff]

if they added explosives to 3000 pagers

Given that bystanders are being inured, it is likely significantly less than 3000 pagers.

 

[Joey D]

Do you know many people who using pagers these days? For personal use.

The entire medical profession. It's 2024 and I still have a pager despite my phone also doubling as one. Pagers get messages where phones don't and hospitals almost always have poor mobile reception. First responders also use pagers, especially in areas with poor cellular coverage. Pagers aren't nearly as common as they were 10-20 years ago, but they're still used pretty frequently.

 

[Sprite]

Given that bystanders are being inured, it is likely significantly less than 3000 pagers.

My apologies conflated 3000 people with 3000 pagers.

Still, however many devices were compromised they had no idea who’s hands they would end up in.

 

[Scaff]

Do you know many people who using pagers these days?

Yes, all with legitimate uses.

For personal use.

Irrelevant goalpost shuffling.

1 dead children per 3000+ terrorists?

Your maths is out.

 

[inCloud]

Lots of medical professionals use them. Albeit not for personal use

I seriously doubt that medical workers buy pagers from Hezbollah

they had no way of knowing how many would be handed/sold to the general populace and intended target.

Most likely they knew who ordered

How many of the adults were non-terrorists

Wouldn't be surprised if 99% as those were communication tools for terrorist officers.

 

[Scaff]

I seriously doubt that medical workers buy pagers from Hezbollah

Hezbollah isn't just a military organisation, it also operates as a political organisation and runs numerous social programs, including "at least four hospitals, twelve clinics, twelve schools, and two agricultural centres"

Once again you present poorly informed guesswork as if it were fact.

Wouldn't be surprised if 99% as those were communication tools for terrorist officers.

I wouldn't be surprised if 99% of what you post is done with zero fact-checking or critical reasoning, and I know which guestimate is likely to be more accurate.

 

[Sprite]

I seriously doubt that medical workers buy pagers from Hezbollah

Gold Apollo: Taiwan pager maker stunned by link to Lebanon attacks

The race to find the manufacturer of pagers that exploded in Lebanon leads to a Taiwanese company.

www.bbc.co.uk

Nice try but you’ll have to work a bit harder. Accusing Gold Apollo the maker of the pagers of being Hezbollah.

 

[Scaff]

Most likely they knew who ordered

but not exactly what would happen to them after that, what they 100% know is that elements of the non-military parts of Hezbollah would end up using them, and that would result is a significant risk to civilians.

 

[Touring Mars]

I would have thought that Hezbollah would be extremely careful and selective about who got their pagers, especially since the entire point of using them was to coordinate comms against the enemy. I would have thought that they would be very unlikely to end up in civilian hands, or anyone else not directly related to their paramilitary activities, though doubtless some did end up with non-combatants.

Still, it is a very audacious attack by the Israelis, almost custom designed to inflame tensions at an already critical moment, and once again demonstrates Israel's blatant disregard for collateral damage and their apparent ease with maiming or killing their targets despite the cost. That said, Hezbollah deserve little sympathy, and have conducted some terrible actions of their own in recent years, and attacking Israel directly was always likely to be met with a very harsh response.

 

[inCloud]

Accusing Gold Apollo the maker of the pagers of being Hezbollah.

wat? Hezbollah ordered pagers from manufacturer in EU(who has licence to produce those from GA), I can't imagine why would they sell half of that batch to hospital or hospital workers. Not like all medicine personal exploded(few did, to be fair).

 

[MatskiMonk]

In terms of counter terrorism, it's an excellent idea, and it was very well executed, but, detonating a significant amount of explosives when you know it is distributed across a civilian community - but not actually where it is, is in itself either a terrorist act, an act of war or a war crime, depending on where you stand on Israel.

With so many Hezbollah members injured, and their comms being in a shambles right now, it would be the perfect time for a less covert attack from the Israelis. If they do this, then do nothing, then they'll achieve nothing in the long run.

 

[Danoff]

I would have thought that Hezbollah would be extremely careful and selective about who got their pagers, especially since the entire point of using them was to coordinate comms against the enemy. I would have thought that they would be very unlikely to end up in civilian hands, or anyone else not directly related to their paramilitary activities, though doubtless some did end up with non-combatants.

I'm not clear on how Israel could or even tried to accomplish this. Maybe you can fill me in on how Israel would have pulled that off. In terms of statistics, it was 2 out of 12 dead that ended up being children. Who knows how many were injured. So whatever Israel did to try to target this attack, it was not good.

I think it's important to not pretend that Israel had omnipotent knowledge about who was getting the pagers, what they'd be used for, who would be holding them, or who would be near them.

Hezbollah deserve little sympathy, and have conducted some terrible actions of their own in recent years, and attacking Israel directly was always likely to be met with a very harsh response.

Terrorists deserve little sympathy of course. It's clear to me those aren't the only people Israel killed and maimed here.

 

[Touring Mars]

I'm not clear on how Israel could or even tried to accomplish this. Maybe you can fill me in on how Israel would have pulled that off.

I'm saying that Hezbollah would have been extremely careful about who was in that pager network - clearly any Hezbollah comms network is a target for Israel, as has been made horribly evident by these attacks.

I'm not disagreeing that Israel themselves took no steps whatsoever to attempt to avoid collateral damage though. Infact, I'd go as far to say that collateral damage would be considered by some in Israel to be a veritable bonus. But, Mossad would have known the above too - that Hezbollah themselves would be very selective about who had access to these devices. Plus, Mossad would very likely have known that there was a shipment of pagers destined for and ordered by Hezbollah, and managed to intercept the order and booby trap them.

But I agree with the gist of your point - irrespective of how many Hezbollah members were killed or injured (and I guess it was a lot), it still also qualifies as an indiscriminate attack on civilians and ought to be considered a war crime.

 

[Danoff]

I'm saying that Hezbollah would have been extremely careful about who was in that pager network

I have no doubt that any terrorist group would be very careful about who is in their network. That's not the same thing as who has pagers though or which pagers get used for what. In otherwords, I don't think there was a box of pagers that were labeled "Terrorist Only" and those were the ones that got the extra payload.

 

[inCloud]

That's not the same thing as who has pagers though or which pagers get used for what.

Those pagers were bought by Hezbollah and detonation message was sent through Hezbollah network used for planning attacks on Israel. Its restricted to give your pager to anyone, obviously.

Pagers contained 5g of explosives, so collateral isn't very likely.

Could there be some poor kid that stole his father's pager at that moment? Yes. Is it very likely considering what was written above? No.

 

[Famine]

Isn't this just cluster munitions in a civilian area?

 

[Touring Mars]

I have no doubt that any terrorist group would be very careful about who is in their network. That's not the same thing as who has pagers though or which pagers get used for what. In otherwords, I don't think there was a box of pagers that were labeled "Terrorist Only" and those were the ones that got the extra payload.

Hezbollah made a conscious decision at the highest level to switch to pagers, and the fact that they are seemingly all the same type suggests that a specific order/shipment was made to facilitate that switch; it wouldn't make much sense to do it any other way.

I very much doubt that Mossad would randomly booby trap a bunch of pagers - they would not risk getting something like that wrong, and would almost certainly have had clear intelligence that Hezbollah were placing an order specifically for their own use (or indeed Mossad may well have set the whole thing up themselves).

Plus, it's not like Israel would have nothing to lose if they inadvertantly massacred a bunch of civilians exclusively and left Hezbollah relatively untouched - they'd lose a great deal from such an action, and hence I don't believe that they'd go ahead with such an attack unless they were pretty certain of at least achieving their principal aim - to hit Hezbollah where it hurts.

 

[Danoff]

Those pagers were bought by Hezbollah and detonation message was sent through Hezbollah network used for planning attacks on Israel. Its restricted to give your pager to anyone, obviously.

Pagers contained 5g of explosives, so collateral isn't very likely.

Could there be some poor kid that stole his father's pager at that moment? Yes. Is it very likely considering what was written above? No.

How can you just not even acknowledge the fact that I've been telling you that kids died for the last page. "Sent through the network" - you seem to be interpreting as some kind of "terrorists only" network. You keep pretending that there's information here that there just isn't and really can't be. There's no terrorist-only network for pagers. I'm sure that if you're a terrorist you're not supposed to give your pager to anyone else. That doesn't mean that terrorists are the only ones that have one of these pagers.

Collateral damage isn't likely? It's all circular reasoning all the way down isn't it? Collateral damage is highly likely, as evidenced by the high percentage of dead kids.

Hezbollah made a conscious decision at the highest level to switch to pagers, and the fact that they are seemingly all the same type suggests that a specific order/shipment was made to facilitate that switch; it wouldn't make much sense to do it any other way.

Terrorists in the region have been using pagers for a while. I'm sure there are lots of uses of pagers.

I also seriously doubt that Mossad would just randomly booby trap a bunch of pagers - they would very likely not risk getting something like that wrong, and hence would very likely have had clear intelligence (or indeed set the whole thing up as a black op themselves) that Hezbollah were placing an order specifically for their use.

So now we're trusting Israel to have taken steps to make sure that civilians were not harmed? This is Israel we're talking about is it not? I do not trust them to have been careful with this at all, and I've seen no evidence to suggest that they were, or to suggest that they even could have been. I have seen statistics among the dead to suggest that they weren't.

Plus, it's not like Israel would have nothing to lose if they inadvertantly massacred a bunch of civilians exclusively and left Hezbollah relatively untouched - they'd lose a great deal from such an action, and hence I don't believe that they'd go ahead with such an attack unless they were pretty certain of at least achieving their principal aim - to hit Hezbollah where it hurts.

I'm sure that they hurt many terrorists, and I'm sure that they hurt many others and don't care. This is always the way with Israel. They see the enemy among a crowd and just open fire.

 

[inCloud]

There's no terrorist-only network for pagers.

Do you know how pagers work?

high percentage of dead kids

2 out of 3000?

 

[Touring Mars]

So now we're trusting Israel to have taken steps to make sure that civilians were not harmed?

No, what I'm saying is that it makes no sense from a Mossad/Israeli point of view to launch this attack without knowing that they are going to hit their targets hard; but I've just said that they don't care who gets hurt in that process. What I'm saying, though, is that it is extremely unlikely that Israel would have gone ahead with the order to attack unless they were very sure they would, at the very least, hit their target(s). Bear in mind that this was basically a one-shot deal - Israel will never be able to pull this type of attack off again, so they would have (and undoubtedly have) gone to extraordinary lengths to ensure that it hit who they wanted it to hit - albeit with plenty more besides. Mossad must have been very confident that the pagers they intercepted and booby-trapped had actually ended up in the hands (and trousers) of the people they wanted to hit, otherwise they would likely not have revealed their hand in such a way.

2 out of 3000?

No... 2 out of 12 fatalites yesterday, and unconfirmed number out of 14 more today. Either way, that's a high percentage already - and no numbers on injured civilians/kids out of the thousands injured.

 

[Danoff]

Do you know how pagers work?

Yes. I mean, I couldn't build one out of spare parts if I was on a deserted island, but I have some understanding of how they work. Perhaps you could educate me on what I'm not understanding about how pagers work that enables them to only blow up terrorists (and some kids).

No, what I'm saying is that it makes no sense from a Mossad/Israeli point of view to launch this attack without knowing that they are going to hit their targets hard; but I've just said that they don't care who gets hurt in that process. What I'm saying, though, is that it is extremely unlikely that Israel would have gone ahead with the order to attack unless they were very sure they would, at the very least, hit their target(s). Bear in mind that this was basically a one-shot deal - Israel will never be able to pull this type of attack off again, so they would have (and undoubtedly have) gone to extraordinary lengths to ensure that it hit who they wanted it to hit - plus plenty more besides.

One of the biggest goals of this operation, at least as best I can tell, is to disrupt communications. Terrorists have retreated to pagers to avoid being tracked. Israel doesn't want them to have that recourse, so Israel is making it very scary to use a pager or hand-held radio. This kind of terrorism means that terrorists now have to find another way to communicate, presumably Israel already has explosive carrier pigeons in circulation for an event tomorrow.

They're cutting off communications and definitely hitting some terrorists by targeting a specific kind of device and region that has a higher likelyhood of being held by a terrorist than some other kind of device or region. None of that establishes that they have the kind of foreknowledge or confidence in who is holding these pagers that would make this attack "precision" or possibly even "targeted". It's very Israel to play these kind of profiling percentages.

 

[inCloud]

No... 2 out of 12 fatalites yesterday, and unconfirmed number out of 14 more today. Either way, that's a high percentage already - and no numbers on injured civilians/kids out of the thousands injured.

There were 5000 pagers in that batch, 2700 affected were confirmed yesterday(actually there should be more as some bleeding in tunnels near Israel border). Considering overcrowded and low budgeted hospitals in Lebanon we could expect 2000-3000 heavily injured or dead terrorists. Of course, full grown man would stay alive longer with heavy injuries, than kid so for now its 2to12 dead.

Perhaps you could educate me

Start with Wikipedia, there is enough info to understand why there was private terrorist network.

 

[Danoff]

Start with Wikipedia, there is enough info to understand why there was private terrorist network.

Pass. The private terrorist network is a convenient fantasy for you.

for now its 2to12 dead.

No, not 2 to 12, 2 out of 12. Big difference.

 

[Liquid]

Isn't this just cluster munitions in a civilian area?

Are you anti-Semetic??

 

[Bram Turismo]

Good to see the Israelis are no better than the terrorists they fight.

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who thinks like this.

At the rate at which they completely ravage, raze and destroy Gaza, as well as injure or kill innocent bystanders amidst their attacks on Hezbollah, this is nothing but an act of terror in itself.

The worst thing is that we can assume innocent lives will be lost during Hezbollah's retaliation on Isreal. And so on and so forth...

 

[Famine]

Are you anti-Semetic??

Anti Semtextic