I couldn’t find anything that indicated that the word bloodthirsty specifically comes from the antisemitic blood libel. It seems to be a long-used term for homicidal or murderous, with cognates in several European languages, and even a very similar word haimodipsos in ancient Greek.
It’s certainly possible that they’d have included a larger payload if that had been possible; but there’s also a pretty long tradition in military planning of seeing logistically draining and/or permanently disabling ones as either acceptable or even outright preferable to full kills.
Something like this, strategically, looks more like a very exotically deployed minefield than it does a very lightweight artillery or air strike.
[…]
Security considerations mean that Hezbollah is responsible for its own discrete communication network and there have been previous concerns that Israel may have managed to penetrate its telecommunications. This speculation, though unconfirmed, has been fueled since October by the assassination of several Hezbollah commanders, with targeting coordinates having been generated for locations that were otherwise considered safe.
[…]
There have been reports, including from three different security sources, that the targeted pagers were from a recent shipment to arrive in Lebanon. If true, that could suggest that they had some kind of malware implanted in them and an explosive charge. This would have required Israel to intercept and alter or swap out the shipments of these pagers, which would be a complex affair, but not one outside of the realm of feasibility.
[…]
That qualifies as a “Final Destination style sequence” in my opinion.
And here comes the “this is a great milestone/achievement” guys! (not specifically you, FGD135, but the guys who wrote this)
As I said in another place where they were saying the same thing: We had the capacity to do this since the cold war. Heck, I remember a couple years ago about a story where the chinese goverment installed hardware backdoors on blade servers!
What we did lack was the… well, murderous will to start a bloody world war 3.
According to the founder of Gold Apollo, they were manufactured and sold by a company based in Hungary under agreement with Gold Apollo.
If this were a Tom Clancy novel, I would call it hackneyed, but goddamn if truth isn’t somehow worse than bad fiction…
a battery short out doesnt lead to a sudden explosion, they start to spark and burn. and what about nearly empty batteries? I believe that would be too many uncertainties for something like this “operation”. furthermore, theres this (nyt) link from @anon97585346;
The explosive material, as little as one to two ounces, was implanted next to the battery in each pager, two of the officials said. A switch was also embedded that could be triggered remotely to detonate the explosives…Independent cybersecurity experts who have studied footage of the attacks said it was clear that the strength and speed of the explosions were caused by a type of explosive material
Have you got a source for that?
Netanyahu is pretty tight with Viktor Orbán, so if this is true the pagers could have been…customised in Hungary.
Among others
BAC Consulting is not a manufacturer, so it would have used a third party, which would have sourced components from others, and delivered through another.
I doubt you could draw a straight line, either between BAC and Israel or BAC and Hezbollah.
Targeting schools, hospitals, aid stations, safe areas. Seems pretty on par for their current ethos.
NPR story this morning claimed that the pagers were made by a firm in Hungary. Given the fascist leadership there, supporting another fascist regime seems unsurprising. Still unclear what was done, but something certainly was. God, this timeline sucks.
The American University Hospital in Beirut reportedly collected all pagers from its nurses and doctors about 10 days ago, citing ‘technical issues,’ according to employees. Lebanese media is now alleging that the hospital may have been forewarned of the cyberattack by Israel or the U.S.
It certainly looks that way from the headline, but reading the actual email there is no urgency whatsoever, which you would expect if they knew they had bombs on their hands. I vote coincidence.
