nytimes.com
www.nytimes.com

Israel carried out its operation against Hezbollah on Tuesday by hiding explosive material within a new batch of Taiwanese-made pagers imported into Lebanon, according to American and other officials briefed on the operation.

The pagers, which Hezbollah had ordered from Gold Apollo in Taiwan, had been tampered with before they reached Lebanon, according to some of the officials. Most were the company’s AP924 model, though three other Gold Apollo models were also included in the shipment.

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.

MBFC
Archive

  • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
    61·
    2 months ago

    Admittedly I can’t find the civilian injury numbers (I don’t think they’re out yet), but I found this:

    “Even if the attacks seem to have been targeted, they had heavy, indiscriminate collateral damages among civilians, including children among the victims,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in a statement Wednesday after he met with Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib for talks.

    At least, they were indiscriminate enough that the EU foreign policy chief found it appropriate to call them indiscriminate, which makes sense given that they were at least strong enough to kill or injure the guy sitting next to you on the bus if you’re carrying a pager.

    Also from here:

    Hezbollah has vowed to retaliate against Israel. The group said two of its fighters were among the dead and threatened a “just punishment”.

    Given that 12 have died so far (9 at the time of the article), I’d expect more than 2 to be Hezbollah fighters before I call the attack discriminate. Now while there is a chance they’re more discriminate than this information implies, I doubt they got enough Hezbollah combatants or combat-adjacent members to qualify as valid military action.

    • AHemlocksLieEnglish
      6·
      2 months ago

      Hmmm you may be right. We’ll have to see how the numbers shake out to be sure either way, but I’ll concede it at least sounds plausible the collateral damage is unacceptably high.