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> From Israel's perspective, this supply chain attack was undoubtedly a clever move From The Guardian [1]: > Eight killed and 2,750 wounded Was that a clever
by barbazoo 2y ago
> From Israel's perspective, this supply chain attack was undoubtedly a clever move
From The Guardian [1]:
> Eight killed and 2,750 wounded
Was that a clever move if you're killing "only" 8 potential adversaries?
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/sep/17/middle-east-crisis-live-netanyahu-expands-gaza-war-aims-blinken-heads-to-egypt https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/sep/17/middle-ea...
- walthamstow 2y agoIf their comms are severely disrupted, yes. Even if it wasn't militarily effective, it's still quite a clever attack.
- John23832 2y agoKilling isn't always the goal. The effect of this "action" is the same as a bouncing betty. (I assume) The goal is to incapacitate and use resources.
- _DeadFred_ 2y agoI'm guessing it was to stop some tentative action on Hezbollahs and the huge number of Syrians that this attack got as wells parts that was about to occur.
- AustinDev 2y agoThe death toll isn't the goal. They're after the 2nd order effects, now there are ~3,000 operatives that are marked by a scar that is relatively distinctive. They also have substantially disrupted their communication protocols and caused psychological damage.
- Agingcoder 2y agoHezbollah members in Lebanon are not necessarily perceived as bad people - why would the scar be a problem ? Hezbollah claims it’s a resistance movement to Israel, they’re now wearing a scar caused by Israel in a mass coordinated attack, which will further legitimize Hezbollah. I agree with the disruption of communication protocols and psychological damage though.
- ars 2y agoThe scar marks an operative. Israel has a huge amount of video footage, now they work backward and see where that person went, and who they talked to.
- orochimaaru 2y agoIs it all of Lebanon though? I think Christian and Druze Lebanese don’t like the Hezbollah much anyway. Sure the Shiite south does but no one else.
- underdeserver 2y agoI don't get it. Why does Lebanon need to resist Israel? When in recent history has Israel attacked Lebanon or threatened it in any way, except in retaliation or defense against Hezbollah acts?
- mongol 2y agoIn the first Lebanon war, Israel invaded Lebanon to strike against PLO. At this time, Hezbollah did not really exist, or was at least small and insignificant. It grew as a force in opposition of Israel's occupation.
- awqe 2y ago[flagged]
- underdeserver 2y agoIf the ruling government of Lebanon allowed the PLO to strike Israel from Lebanese soil, what could they expect Israel to do?
- Agingcoder 2y agoThis was in the middle of the Lebanese civil war in 1982 , the Lebanese government had no control over anything. Furthermore, after the Israeli entered Lebanon in 1982, they didn’t fully leave the country until 2000, which is what caused the founding of hezbollah in 1982, and the perception of hezbollah as a resistance movement since then. Basically the Lebanese see Israel has having attacked then occupied a part of Lebanon for about 20 years, between 1982 and 2000 - this is recent enough for most people to relate to it.
- aksss 2y agoThis is on target. Tagging collaborators certainly has advantages, not so much for invoking a social glare at home but helping to identify them to intelligence sources, certainly.
- markus_zhang 2y agoI think the purpose is to terrorize your opponents. Sometimes getting seriously wounded is even worse than getting killed, from the perspective of Hez. Now they need to handle thousands of wounded members, which is much more expensive than dead ones.
- jsheard 2y agoWho said the injured are all Hezbollah members? From the above Guardian coverage: "Among those killed is an eight-year-old girl from Bekka Valley, Abiad said, according to Al Jazeera." This CCTV footage shows one of the devices exploding in a busy supermarket: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/dozens-hezbollah-members-wounded-lebanon-when-pagers-exploded-sources-witnesses-2024-09-17/ https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/dozens-hezbollah-m... Terrorizing your opponents is one thing, but indiscriminately detonating bombs in public spaces is just plain terrorism.
- alephnerd 2y ago[flagged]
- wraptile 2y agoOptimist in me thinks that outside solution is still possible either through revolutionary tech or fundamental discovery like total disproof of religion.
- alephnerd 2y agoSadly, not happening. A lot of Israelis, Palestinians, and Lebanese are irreligious. Yet, a lot of Israelis, Palestinians, and Lebanese know people who have been affected by the conflict first hand (either refugees, civilian casualties, or combatant casualties), which makes it difficult to negotiate. The 1990s-2000s was the last period where some sort of negotiation could succeed, because there was still a large 1st and 1.5 gen Mizrahi and Sephardic community that had some residual feeling for Muslim states, and vice versa. That's how Israel and Morocco, Azerbaijan, and Turkey pre-2012 were able to get their relationship back on track. At this point, the peace process is dead. Even the secular opposition to Likud and the Kahanists in Israel supports a harsh military response, casualties be damned. Similar story in West Bank, Gaza, and Lebanon. Any sort of peace process will have to be backed by internal repression for a generation by all participants.
- animuchan 2y ago[flagged]
- gojomo 2y agoIt looks like a trigger that can only be pulled once. Thus, choice of the optimal time could be influenced by a lot of things: - knowledge of other Hezbollah imminent action making comms disruption right now of great importance - recognition that the vulnerability had been discovered and was about to be remediated - via other "eyes on" prime targets, knowledge that just one or two top leaders were briefly in especially-vulnerable positions (like sleeping alongside their pagers) - etc And, there will be a "long tail" of damage to Hezbollah's usual communications practices & trust in devices/suppliers. Some marginal recruits may even be deterred from joining a battle against an opponent which can carry out this sort of attack – though of course, others may be emboldened.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Qem 2y ago> And, there will be a "long tail" of damage to Hezbollah's usual communications practices & trust in devices/suppliers. It appears pager use was a solid choice. Even on full supply chain compromise the amount of explosives fitted couldn't kill even 1% of targets. A cellphone would be packed with much larger payloads able to kill much more people. Their failure was the lack of proper inspection before distribution.
- hnaccount_rng 2y agoI’d be surprised if the amount of explosives was influenced by physical constraints. The aim wasn’t (and never is) to kill. It was to disrupt command and control. If even half the leadership lost hands, eyes, ears or mouths, there literally is no other option of similar effectiveness available. But on the other hand. They needed the pagers to work for half a year or more (and still only about 3k/5k seem to have been active). Think about tech-support-but-evil trying to fix one that a boss dropped and discovering the explosives inside
- dagaci 2y agoTBH Israel does not concern itself about killing bystanders generally and our western press will also laser focus on hezbullah.
- dredmorbius 2y agoIt's not clear whether you're asserting Israel does or doesn't care whether it kills civilians, though I think you're saying it doesn't in general try to accomplish this. Israel's history is decidedly chequered in this regard, and there have been killings, including quite recently of demonstrators / protestors, and within recent years of journalists, by Israeli forces. But there are also practices such as "roof knocking" in which an initial nonlethal warning is exploded above a building several minutes prior to a much more destructive strike: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roof_knocking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roof_knocking> Video of a roof-knock strike: <https://xcancel.com/AJEnglish/status/1710690655091990644#m https://xcancel.com/AJEnglish/status/1710690655091990644#m> The explosion seen doesn't significantly damage the building, that occurs in a later strike, shown as the first set of explosions here: <https://yewtu.be/watch?v=ZFTK9V_mEjI https://yewtu.be/watch?v=ZFTK9V_mEjI> (That clip follows with the initial roof-knock.) And to be clear, much of Israel's subsequent air and artillery assault on the Gaza strip has been far less surgical, with vast numbers of structures destroyed. By contrast, both Hamas and Hezbollah make extensive use of highly inaccurate missiles (totally unguided in the case of Hamas, guided though low-ish precision generally for Hezbollah) which are effectively aerial mines, striking randomly largely within civilian areas. This reflects both tactics and available means, so again the picture is complex. As I've written in an earlier comment on this thread, most hats are at best grey in these conflicts, rather than clearly white.
- dagaci 2y agoNot to get into it here, but i believe the fancy non-lethal warnings is done for the TV audience. There are so many incidents of bombings civilian areas stretching back for decades. And the statistics for the IDF killings of children alone are off the scale.
- 2y ago
- mupuff1234 2y agoIdk who exactly was hit but losing a hand will definitely hurt ones ability to fight.
- Atotalnoob 2y agoKilling is one thing, but wounded soldiers/operatives are a much larger drain on resources than killing. The wounded people need care, medicine, rehab, therapy, and feeding during their recovery. This occupies significant resources of your enemy. I’m not commenting on this specific attack, but talking in general.
- golergka 2y ago[flagged]
- bamboozled 2y ago[flagged]
- rocqua 2y agoIf this were coordinated with a ground attack on Hezbollah, it would be a great way to disrupt any defense right before it needs to offer resistance. I'm surprised they used it out of such a concept. It is almost heartening, because it suggests no such attack is currently anticipated by Israel.
- _DeadFred_ 2y agoHow do we know this didn't do this but in reverse, being used to disrupt an attack Hezbollah had planned? Edit: People seem to be ignoring the large amount of Syrian operatives this hit as well.
- Luminae 2y agoOr the sabotage was on the verge of being discovered and their options were either to use it at an inopportune time or lose the ability to use it at all.
- golergka 2y ago[flagged]
- CydeWeys 2y agoI think the simplest explanation here is that pagers are small and light and don't have that much free space inside them, and it's hard to fit enough explosive into them to reliably kill people. The figures I saw was only a few grams of explosive could be fit in them. If you look at the photos and videos that have been coming out today you'll see what the injuries look like; they're not as catastrophic as getting shot with a bullet, or anything close to a real explosive with orders of magnitude more explosive in it like an artillery shell, rocket, aerial bomb, etc. I would guess Israel would have preferred more lethal pagers, but the required amount of explosive simply didn't fit. So the resulting deaths are from the people who got really unlucky, whereas getting wounded was the modal result.
- LegitShady 2y agoyou're looking at the wrong videos. I saw videos with people's hands blown off, massive holes in their bodies, etc. reportedly something like 15-20gr of Pentaerythritol tetranitrate. Massive wounds.
- patmcc 2y agoI suspect it's going to matter a lot where the pager was relative to the person at time of explosion. Someone holding it in a closed fist vs reading it vs in a backpack vs in a pocket could all have very different wound patterns.
- LegitShady 2y agothere's also going to be a bunch of plastic shrapnel either way. reports were saying that people's eyes were being hit, I think most likely by plastic shrapnel.
- Qem 2y ago> I would guess Israel would have preferred more lethal pagers, but the required amount of explosive simply didn't fit. They would have preferred cellphones.
- elorant 2y agoIt surely is because you corrode your target’s trust in technology. They moved from smartphones to pagers, now they’ll have to find even cruder types of communications.
- Qem 2y agoPagers fine. Even with full supply chain compromise left less than 1% targets dead. Although they need better inspection before distribution.
- elorant 2y agoIf you lost half your gut or a kidney or had your stomach punctured you may be alive, but you’re definitely not battle ready. And you may never be again. A device that explodes in such close proximity to a body is more than certain that it will damage some internal organ. All these thousands of Hezbollah militia are forever incapacitated. You didn't kill them, but they can't hurt you in the future if let's say you decide to mount a full scale invasion on Lebanon.
- pvaldes 2y ago> less than 1% targets dead By now. The final value will be higher.
- sethammons 2y ago2k/300M people died on 9/11 and our world has forever changed. 1% is waaaay bigger than that number. Terror spreads.
- myth_drannon 2y ago500 blinded
- yowzadave 2y agoAnd how many of those wounded are totally unconnected bystanders, who just happened to be standing next to the individual in the grocery store or wherever?
- respondo2134 2y agoexactly. The most charitable way to look at this is Israel targeted a handful fewer bystanders than a terrorist attack. I can't imagine anyone thinking longer-term strategy thought thought this was a good idea.
- _DeadFred_ 2y agoReally isn't though. We don't know if there was an imminent action that Israel prevented by doing this? Did Israel do this instead of blowing up apartment blocks to target individuals, in which case this might be a much more limited collateral damage action than other methods might have caused. Without knowing Israel's motives one can't make any sort of judgement not sure why you are leaping to conclusions minus any actual information.
- IG_Semmelweiss 2y agoI actually think that an unintended consequence is that Mossad has permanently flagged the vast majority of Hizbullah's followers, an entire generation, on Lebanese soil. The wound patterns will emerge for the vast majority of victims: arms, hands, eyes and hips ? Time will tell. The Lebanese army, and the IDF, now suddenly can tell between civilian vs combatant.
- bbqfog 2y agoIf I was wounded (or even witnessed this in real life), I would go from civilian to combatant instantly. Israel just attacked a bunch of civilian population centers. This will be seen as a huge strategic mistake, both in terms of new combatants created on the ground and continued loss of good will for Israel abroad.
- orena 2y agoThe only reason IL can do it, is because the general population in Lebanon hates hezbollah, it is basically a proxy control power from IRAN. Look at this to understand how big part of Lebanon sees Hezbollah https://www.instagram.com/brigitte_gabriel/reel/CyT_RanK1gi/ https://www.instagram.com/brigitte_gabriel/reel/CyT_RanK1gi/
- _DeadFred_ 2y ago[flagged]
- IG_Semmelweiss 2y agoI think you are missing context. 10 years of civil war and many more decades of animositiy and of strife, are not reversed overnight , even due to an event like this. For example, Israël has lobbed missiles before, and that had its collateral damage, but also didnt change a thing or win new allies to Hizbullah. Even some druze (historically neutral sectl were kidnapped and killed in the Oct 7th events. Now, for the 1st time in 100 years, every single rival of hizbullah is able to instantly recognize enemies, in the open. Obe thing im certain of, Israel has managed to reset the board in its conflict with Hezbollah.
- seized 2y agoI doubt those 2,750 all have minor injuries. That's 2,750 targets, a lot of whom probably now now have missing fingers/hands, a chunk missing from their leg, face injuries.... Aka major injuries from having a small explosion on their belt or int their pocket. It's going to be 2,750 probably major injuries that will take a long time to recover from.
- chillingeffect 2y agoAnd then they will be 10x more dedicated to revenge. Where they may have sworn to destory Israel before, they weren't yet personally injured. It'a the same cycle of violence.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- chii 2y agoThey're already looking to destroy israel prior to this incident.
- andy-x 2y agoSo, Israel wants to give them more motivation?
- sethammons 2y agoyou can't fill a full bag, there is no "more" to conceive of. They are fully convinced already that all Israelis should simply be killed or worse than killed.
- montyboy_us 2y agoIt's the psychology. Every sat phone and laptop is being opened up right now...
- mattfrommars 2y ago> 2,750 wounded Absolutely insane. Imagine this many Israeli had been wounder by Hammas attack. Disgusting move from Israel to keep civilian causalities minimum! This is no excuse for 'collateral damage'
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- bushbaba 2y agoNearly every single one injured was a Hezbollah militant. Regarding militant:civilian rates, this has one of the lowest civilian impacts of any option. Most modern wars see MORE than 1 civilian death per militant death. This pager bomb was nearly entirely militants.
- mattfrommars 2y agoIsraeli war in Gaza is the bloodiest happening right now. These bombs went off right in front of civilian population with no regards to children or women. Close to 3000 wounded. Wounded include children losing limbs.
- Terr_ 2y ago> Wounded include children losing limbs. That seems like an awful lot of explosive power for something that needs to be secretly added to a functional pocket pager without affecting external dimensions or adding perceptible weight. Cautious skepticism is warranted, given how profitable some parties would find it to make such claims regardless of whether they are true or not.
- rocqua 2y agoWounded soldiers are often a bigger burden than killed ones. You neee to retrieve them, take care of them, and they may never be fight capable again. They are also a breathing reminder of the costs of war, and at the same time less likely to make others vow revenge.
- agapon 2y agoThe point was probably to reduce accidental casualties. Also, the wounds can be quite severe. Finally, a device like a pager cannot hold a lot of explosive substance in its spare space anyway.