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Exactly it’s one thing to target operatives it’s another thing to target large number of people when they’re among the civilians. Phone exploding in a market,
by mrtksn 2y ago
Exactly it’s one thing to target operatives it’s another thing to target large number of people when they’re among the civilians.
Phone exploding in a market, doesn’t make it OK if the owner of the phone is a militant.
With that logic the Hamas terrorist attack last year isn’t a terrorist attack because many of the victims served in the IDF, which illegally occupies their territory.
This is getting ridiculous. Israel will loose the last drops of good will, which is a shame considering how much they achieved to do on that barely habitable piece of land. It breaks my heart.
- tptacek 2y agoUnder International Humanitarian Law it absolutely does make it OK if the owner of the phone is a militant. This is black letter Law of Armed Combat.
- mrtksn 2y agoMost people are not judges in the international court of justice. The legal technicalities are irrelevant.
- tptacek 2y agoI don't know what that is supposed to mean. There are norms of warfare and these attacks fall within them.
- mrtksn 2y agoIt means that those behind it will get the same treatment as known criminal getting away from punishment by the law due to technicalities. More precisely, the Israeli politicians will not get sentenced by the courts of law but the Jewish people will suffer from increased antisemitism, politicians supporting the country of Israel will get unpopular and Israel will lose support. Israeli business will be considered risky.
- beeboobaa3 2y ago[flagged]
- newspaper1 2y agoWhen have thousands of consumer devices, in public circulation, been covert bombs set off in unison? This is far, far outside of the norms of warfare. To the parent's point, I'm looking at my iPhone thinking that Israel would murder me with it if they wanted, and it absolutely does not make me support Israel.
- anigbrowl 2y agoThey may do so, but you know perfectly well what the reaction would be if this happened to people in the US pursuant to an ongoing conflict.
- tptacek 2y agoI do. We'd go completely apeshit. People would lie about their age to join up, like after Pearl Harbor. So? That's war. War is very bad.
- anigbrowl 2y agoIt is war, but I think there's a qualitative difference you're overlooking, which will inure to Israel's detriment. That difference is the use of asymmetric tactics traditionally employed by the weaker party, deployed by a logistically and technologically superior foe at scale. Consider the incident a month or two back they assassinated a Hamas negotiator in Iran. That was also asymmetric (in that Iran is a super-hostile environment for any Israeli operations). But while people questioned the probity of assassinating a quasi-diplomat with whom you are ostensibly negotiating, and the Iranians were surely mightily pissed off, nobody serious was suggesting it was a war crime. Here you're not only using something that feels like a 1950s idea of a remote controlled death ray, however selective, but also subjecting the civilian population who witnessed these thousands of parallel attacks to extreme psychological anxiety. The size of the HN threads on this indicate that a lot of people find it distressing because we live surrounded by such embedded electronics (I have 9 or 10 devices on my desk). Imagine how much worse it is for people who are out grocery shopping or whatever and see someone killed or horribly injured by an explosion right next to them.
- tptacek 2y agoI'm not sure I understand why this is "asymmetric warfare". I think that's a term that actually doesn't mean a whole lot, and mostly means "the things weaker adversaries use to level the field against stronger ones". I think a lot of what USSOCOM does/trains falls under the definition of "asymmetric", or would if you discarded the part of that definition that said "weaker opponent". Almost certainly†, conventional military tactics would kill far more civilians in Beirut than will ultimately end up dead in this attack. I have another theory as to why we have very long threads on HN about how distressing these attacks are, but we don't need to dig into it on HN. † Again, I'm cognizant that we're still getting details about this attack.
- Bost 2y agoHonestly, "norms of warfare" is just a rather ridiculous concept imposed by the winning side.
- Bost 2y agoThe international court of justice is irrelevant if you don't have nukes or guns to support your cause.
- tsimionescu 2y agoAttacking millitatns while they are in the middle of civilians, especially when they are not doing that as part of some hostage/human shield operation, is not OK.
- PeterisP 2y agoThe existing conventions do not prohibit attacking militants while they are in the middle of civilians, even if they are not doing that as part of some hostage/human shield operation. It may be considered morally not ok, but doing so does not violate any obligation.
- tptacek 2y agoThat's not exactly true; it would depend on how you attacked the combatants, and how much collateral damage you caused. Civilian casualties must be proportionate to the military value of the target. Reporting is still coming in on these attacks so virtually every comment on these huge long threads could end up falsified one way or the other, but from what I can tell, it looks like these attacks will not only clear that bar, but that they'll do so in a way unprecedented in the history of modern warfare. But we'll see!
- dralley 2y ago[flagged]
- anthk 2y agoTell that to the seriously injured practicioners, children and civilians.
- dralley 2y agoWhat military action do you propose that has zero chance of collateral damage whatsoever? This is vastly better than the alternative of dropping even relatively small (250lb) bombs. This is vastly better than pretty much every alternative.
- dtornabene 2y agoWere the children militants? What about hospital staff? And, how do you know who these people are? You don't, but you're all over this thread running cover for a terrorist attack. I've already seen plenty of reporting that many of these targeted people were not, in fact, militants, but simply political members of Hezbollah. Would you be running the same cover if Hezbollah, or Iran had targeted Knesset staff? Disgusting stuff man, truly odious.
- wut42 2y agoNo! >Customary international humanitarian law prohibits the use of booby traps – objects that civilians are likely to be attracted to or are associated with normal civilian daily use – precisely to avoid putting civilians at grave risk and produce the devastating scenes that continue to unfold across Lebanon today. The use of an explosive device whose exact location could not be reliably known would be unlawfully indiscriminate, using a means of attack that could not be directed at a specific military target and as a result would strike military targets and civilians without distinction. A prompt and impartial investigation into the attacks should be urgently conducted. Lama Fakih, Middle East and North Africa Director at Human Rights Watch https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/09/18/lebanon-exploding-pagers-harmed-hezbollah-civilians https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/09/18/lebanon-exploding-pagers...
- loeg 2y agoThese are not booby traps.
- wut42 2y agostill: The use of an explosive device whose exact location could not be reliably known would be unlawfully indiscriminate, using a means of attack that could not be directed at a specific military target and as a result would strike military targets and civilians without distinction
- mrguyorama 2y ago>device whose exact location could not be reliably known would be unlawfully indiscriminate Nope, artillery shells are not illegal and you can even miss where you are aiming! We once obliterated an entire French coastal village with naval gunfire on D-Day because information in war is imperfect. Accidentally killing civilians is not illegal in war! If you have a "valid military target" who takes a cab from the airport, you can airstrike that cab and not violate the Geneva Conventions. Consider that a nuke that you detonate in the center of a military base that also "just happens" to wipe out the entire city that base is in is not a war crime!
- dredmorbius 2y agoFor those unfamiliar with terms: "Black Letter Law": In common law legal systems, black-letter law refers to well-established legal rules that are no longer subject to reasonable dispute.[1] Black-letter law can be contrasted with legal theory or unsettled legal issues. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-letter_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-letter_law> Searching for black letter and combat turns up: International Institute of Humanitarian Law: The Manual on the Law of Non-International Armed Conflict With Commentary (2006) Among definitions: For the purposes of this Manual, fighters are members of armed forces and dissident armed forces or other organized armed groups, or taking an active (direct) part in hostilities. (p. 4) Civilians are all those who are not fighters. (p. 5) Military objectives are objects which by their nature, location, purpose, or use make an effective contribution to military action and whose total or partial destruction, capture, or neutralisation, in the circumstances at the time, offers a definite military advantage. (p. 5) <https://www.humanrightsvoices.org/assets/attachments/documents/The.Manual.Law.NIAC.pdf https://www.humanrightsvoices.org/assets/attachments/documen...> (I'll note that one of the co-authors is affiliated with Tel Aviv University in Israel, though others do not appear to be Israeli.) The US DoD publishes a law of war manual, last updated in 2023: <https://media.defense.gov/2023/Jul/31/2003271432/-1/-1/0/DOD-LAW-OF-WAR-MANUAL-JUNE-2015-UPDATED-JULY%202023.PDF https://media.defense.gov/2023/Jul/31/2003271432/-1/-1/0/DOD...>
- isr 2y ago[flagged]