Pagers explode all at once, killing 8 and injuring over 2,700 in Lebanon and Syria (video)

Also, it just doesn’t seem like a very efficient use of this tech/exploit.They go through all this trouble, and they only actually killed 8 people out of 100s of those pagers? Plus it’s a one-and-done exploit, they’ll never be able to do it again. I have to conclude that terrorizing Lebanon/Hezbollah is the main goal for the operation.

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Or, possibly, Netanyahu demanded that they make use of this now in order to get (what he falsely perceives to be) a short-term gain rather than reseve it for use in a full-scale war with Lebanon, or whatever other kind of use the military planners may have had in mind for it. He’s certainly been known to ignore the advice of his military advisers and going for inflicting maximum pain / highest body count instead of a more strategic plan.

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This seems pretty clearly to violate international law and all rules of war. Not that Israel hasn’t been ignoring international law and rules of war this entire time, but fuck, this is pretty grossly indefensible.

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The problem is that is basically… just a bit more than what they were already doing:

Source:

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Going from “targeted assassinations” of senior Hezbollah leaders to blowing up thousands of pagers which may or may not be held in that moment by random members of Hezbollah is absolutely not “just a bit more than what they were already doing”.

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Depends on your perspective, maybe. What are described as “targeted assassinations” are usually airstrikes that take out a lot of innocent people along with the target.

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Well describing those as “targeted assassinations” is just a blatant lie, then.

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I’ve seen plenty of Li-ion batteries “explode” in my time and it’s generally a puff of smoke, sparks, and maybe some flames. It can be scary, sure, but not it’s not particularly violent. Of course, it also scales with the size of the battery. A small battery like you’d find in a pager isn’t likely to injure or kill you outside of extreme negligence or some sort of Final Destination style sequence of events.

IOW, I can’t think of any way these devices weren’t altered at some point to become something deadly.

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“Targeted” as in they at least had a known target, instead of blowing up random people and then calling them terrorists and wives and children of terrorists after the fact. :sob:

I can’t say how disgusted I am with this bloodthirsty regime and all the people of the world who stick up for it.

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Yeah…that’s not what targeted generally means in this context, so I’m sticking with “blatant lie”. I am with you on the disgust. I don’t know why the world is still putting up with fascists. And that’s what Netanyahu is. I am still voting for Harris, but we have got to stop enabling this genocidal maniac.

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maybe we shouldn’t use that particular word

That’s exactly what it means in the context of an IDF statement/press release/rebuttal of the footage of children’s corpses that IDF spox get in Northern/western media though.

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I’m sorry, what should we call the mass murder of Palestinians? :thinking:

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Maybe murderous or callous?

Racist mass murderers?

I don’t think it’s a bad idea to avoid that word given the historical abuse of it.

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What it is in this case; sanctioned genocide.

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I don’t know what to tell you. Libel is something false, but these people actually have been deliberately murdering hundreds of children using religion as a paper-thin excuse for war crimes and land theft. I would rather make it clear that they don’t represent Judaism than soften my words based on it, given how often they try to hide their crimes behind the historical bias against the Jews and somehow even accuse other Jewish people of being anti-Semitic.

Netanyahu is a fascist, and fascists feed on innocent life.

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This is straight up civilian targeted terrorism. Full stop.

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The one video I’ve seen, the guy standing 2 feet away was able to run away just fine. The produce a foot away was undisturbed. That just does not sound like much of an explosive to me. Sounds like a lithium battery was somehow convinced to short out on cue.

It’s terrorism, in the original sense of the word. They have injured thousands, probably with life-changing injuries, and in the process clogged up hospitals and undermined trust in any communication technology

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