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https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/pagers-drones-how-hezbollah-aims-counter-israels-high-tech-surveillance-2024-07-09/ https://www.reuters.com/world/midd

by breppp 10mo ago

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/pagers-drones-how-hezbollah-aims-counter-israels-high-tech-surveillance-2024-07-09/ https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/pagers-drones-how-... Here is Hezbollah boasting to Reuters before the pagers attack, about how it moved to using pagers and couriers to counter Israeli intelligence. As you can guess, with the advent of mobile phones in the 2000s, pagers became obsolete in Lebanon

Cyph0n 10mo ago
[flagged]
- breppp 10mo ago
  Doctors don't use pagers anymore, just like tech on calls used to and don't anymore. Mobile phones are far superior for that, and are very available anywhere in the world, and especially to doctors Regarding whether that's brilliant, that is not my wording, but generally it was quite mild compared to the methods of Hezbollah and was highly successful in ending a war with very little bloodshed. The other alternative was tried in 2006 and in Gaza, and fighting a terror organization entrenched in an urban setting means bombings and killing civilians in the process. This was not the end result as Hezbollah fell apart relatively quickly afterwards, so I think it was good compared to any alternative for Lebanese and Israelis
  - Cyph0n 10mo ago
    Doctors still use pagers. I don’t know about Lebanon in particular, but I would wager they still use them there too. The rest is a bunch of hypotheticals. I am also unsure where the conclusion that Hezbollah is dead is coming from. Was their operational capability degraded? Of course. Is the group dead? Absolutely not.
    - breppp 10mo ago
      Regarding the pagers in any case these were specially imported by hezbollah, so these were not used by doctors, even if we assume they only use pagers in Lebanon. Regarding the group, it has signed a cease fire agreement with very unfavorable terms which essentially let Israel bomb any of its members or locations that violate the terms of the cease fire agreement and the lebanese army did not work to resolve, this happens on a weekly basis since the end of the war If you compare this state to the state just prior to October 2023 where Hezbollah had setup a tent in Israeli territory which Israel was too afraid to do something about for months over fear of starting a war, then this is essentially a complete break up in my opinion. Is it dead? no. it's alive enough to keep lebanon in its permanent failed state status due to fear of all other sects of civil war. But together with what happened to its patron, and the local popularity it lost it might break up completely
      - Cyph0n 10mo ago
        Hezbollah has a political/civilian arm. This is my last reply in this thread.
        breppp 10mo ago
        I am aware of that, and hopefully they will become a Lebanese political party without an armed wing, similar to all other political parties, which are most essentially led by former warlords involved in mass killings
        sudosysgen 10mo ago
        Hezbollah operates hospitals and medical services. It's not just a political party.
  - blitzar 10mo ago
    > Doctors don't use pagers anymore, The UK's National Health Service (NHS) is widely considered the single largest user of pagers in the world, with over 130,000 devices in use as of recent years. This figure represented an estimated 10% of the total number of pagers remaining globally.
- fabian2k 10mo ago
  They didn't put bombs in pagers that were freely sold. They put them into shipments for Hizbollah specifically.
  - Cyph0n 10mo ago
    1. I was responding to the incorrect point that pagers are not used by civilians. 2. You are aware that Hezbollah has a civilian/political arm, right? 3. Surely Israel - the most moral country on the planet - painstakingly vetted pager possession before detonating them en masse?
- TiredOfLife 10mo ago
  > Unless you’re a Lebanese doctor? Where would a Lebanese doctor get an encrypted pager bought by Hezbollah and given to Hezbollah members with the explicit use for communicating with other Hezbollah members?
  - Cyph0n 10mo ago
    Growing tired of repeating the same response to the same points. Please see on of my other replies to sibling comments.
- rat87 10mo ago
  The idea that only criminals or terorists have pagers is ridiculous(you mentined doctors). But Israel didnt target pagers in Lebanon. They sold equipment for Hezbollah internal use om their own network (they convinced Hezbollah to pay a front company for the walkies). That is the opposite of indicrimante. as for > white Judeo-Christian variety Judeo Christian is a silly concept. Either say christian or say Abrahamic. While most casulties were affiliated with Hezbollah and therefore overwhelmingly Shia Muslim enough of the general public of Lebanon is Christian that they would make at least some of civilian bystanders injured. Also Lebanese people aren't any whiter in average skin color then the average Israeli
  - tptacek 10mo ago
    That's not the argument. Presumably a broad cross-section of Lebanese people have pagers. But only Hezbollah combatants had these pagers, which were specifically procured by Hezbollah through an idiosyncratic suppler, linked to Hezbollah's own military encrypted network, and triggered by a pager message encrypted to that network.
    - Cyph0n 10mo ago
      > linked to Hezbollah's own military encrypted network, and triggered by a pager message encrypted to that network. I am not sure where you’re getting this information from. For instance, you seem confident that this network used exclusively by the armed wing. Regardless, absolutely none of this negates the fact that this was an indiscriminate terrorist attack. If the sides were reversed, or if virtually any other state executed this kind of attack, it would be rightfully condemned. But Israel, as always, gets a pass. And it was indeed a brilliant plan, but only in how comically evil it was. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Lebanon_electronic_device_attacks?wprov=sfti1#International_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Lebanon_electronic_device...
      - tptacek 10mo ago
        The most obvious citation is Reuters, which did a whole article on this, including the specific circumstances in which the pagers exchanged hands. And, whatever the rest of the moral circumstances of the strike may have been, the fact of the devices being combatant communication equipment does mean that it was neither indiscriminate (it was in fact very discriminate) nor terroristic (it had combatant targets, not civilians). The attacks can still be immoral for a host of other reasons. Pearl Harbor was deeply immoral. It was also not an indiscriminate terrorist attack. Words mean things.

by breppp 10mo ago

Cyph0n 10mo ago

[flagged]

breppp 10mo ago
Doctors don't use pagers anymore, just like tech on calls used to and don't anymore. Mobile phones are far superior for that, and are very available anywhere in the world, and especially to doctors Regarding whether that's brilliant, that is not my wording, but generally it was quite mild compared to the methods of Hezbollah and was highly successful in ending a war with very little bloodshed. The other alternative was tried in 2006 and in Gaza, and fighting a terror organization entrenched in an urban setting means bombings and killing civilians in the process. This was not the end result as Hezbollah fell apart relatively quickly afterwards, so I think it was good compared to any alternative for Lebanese and Israelis
- Cyph0n 10mo ago
  Doctors still use pagers. I don’t know about Lebanon in particular, but I would wager they still use them there too. The rest is a bunch of hypotheticals. I am also unsure where the conclusion that Hezbollah is dead is coming from. Was their operational capability degraded? Of course. Is the group dead? Absolutely not.
  - breppp 10mo ago
    Regarding the pagers in any case these were specially imported by hezbollah, so these were not used by doctors, even if we assume they only use pagers in Lebanon. Regarding the group, it has signed a cease fire agreement with very unfavorable terms which essentially let Israel bomb any of its members or locations that violate the terms of the cease fire agreement and the lebanese army did not work to resolve, this happens on a weekly basis since the end of the war If you compare this state to the state just prior to October 2023 where Hezbollah had setup a tent in Israeli territory which Israel was too afraid to do something about for months over fear of starting a war, then this is essentially a complete break up in my opinion. Is it dead? no. it's alive enough to keep lebanon in its permanent failed state status due to fear of all other sects of civil war. But together with what happened to its patron, and the local popularity it lost it might break up completely
    - Cyph0n 10mo ago
      Hezbollah has a political/civilian arm. This is my last reply in this thread.
      - breppp 10mo ago
        I am aware of that, and hopefully they will become a Lebanese political party without an armed wing, similar to all other political parties, which are most essentially led by former warlords involved in mass killings
        sudosysgen 10mo ago
        Hezbollah operates hospitals and medical services. It's not just a political party.
- blitzar 10mo ago
  > Doctors don't use pagers anymore, The UK's National Health Service (NHS) is widely considered the single largest user of pagers in the world, with over 130,000 devices in use as of recent years. This figure represented an estimated 10% of the total number of pagers remaining globally.
fabian2k 10mo ago
They didn't put bombs in pagers that were freely sold. They put them into shipments for Hizbollah specifically.
- Cyph0n 10mo ago
  1. I was responding to the incorrect point that pagers are not used by civilians. 2. You are aware that Hezbollah has a civilian/political arm, right? 3. Surely Israel - the most moral country on the planet - painstakingly vetted pager possession before detonating them en masse?
TiredOfLife 10mo ago
> Unless you’re a Lebanese doctor? Where would a Lebanese doctor get an encrypted pager bought by Hezbollah and given to Hezbollah members with the explicit use for communicating with other Hezbollah members?
- Cyph0n 10mo ago
  Growing tired of repeating the same response to the same points. Please see on of my other replies to sibling comments.
rat87 10mo ago
The idea that only criminals or terorists have pagers is ridiculous(you mentined doctors). But Israel didnt target pagers in Lebanon. They sold equipment for Hezbollah internal use om their own network (they convinced Hezbollah to pay a front company for the walkies). That is the opposite of indicrimante. as for > white Judeo-Christian variety Judeo Christian is a silly concept. Either say christian or say Abrahamic. While most casulties were affiliated with Hezbollah and therefore overwhelmingly Shia Muslim enough of the general public of Lebanon is Christian that they would make at least some of civilian bystanders injured. Also Lebanese people aren't any whiter in average skin color then the average Israeli
- tptacek 10mo ago
  That's not the argument. Presumably a broad cross-section of Lebanese people have pagers. But only Hezbollah combatants had these pagers, which were specifically procured by Hezbollah through an idiosyncratic suppler, linked to Hezbollah's own military encrypted network, and triggered by a pager message encrypted to that network.
  - Cyph0n 10mo ago
    > linked to Hezbollah's own military encrypted network, and triggered by a pager message encrypted to that network. I am not sure where you’re getting this information from. For instance, you seem confident that this network used exclusively by the armed wing. Regardless, absolutely none of this negates the fact that this was an indiscriminate terrorist attack. If the sides were reversed, or if virtually any other state executed this kind of attack, it would be rightfully condemned. But Israel, as always, gets a pass. And it was indeed a brilliant plan, but only in how comically evil it was. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Lebanon_electronic_device_attacks?wprov=sfti1#International_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Lebanon_electronic_device...
    - tptacek 10mo ago
      The most obvious citation is Reuters, which did a whole article on this, including the specific circumstances in which the pagers exchanged hands. And, whatever the rest of the moral circumstances of the strike may have been, the fact of the devices being combatant communication equipment does mean that it was neither indiscriminate (it was in fact very discriminate) nor terroristic (it had combatant targets, not civilians). The attacks can still be immoral for a host of other reasons. Pearl Harbor was deeply immoral. It was also not an indiscriminate terrorist attack. Words mean things.