82
submitted 2 days ago by njm1314@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world

BEIRUT, Oct 16 (Reuters) - The batteries inside the weaponised pagers that arrived in Lebanon at the start of the year, part of an Israeli plot to decimate Hezbollah, had powerfully deceptive features and an Achilles' heel.

The agents who built the pagers designed a battery that concealed a small but potent charge of plastic explosive and a novel detonator that was invisible to X-ray, according to a Lebanese source with first-hand knowledge of the pagers, and teardown photos of the battery pack seen by Reuters.

To overcome the weakness - the absence of a plausible backstory for the bulky new product - they created fake online stores, pages and posts that could deceive Hezbollah due diligence, a Reuters review of web archives shows.

The stealthy design of the pager bomb and the battery’s carefully constructed cover story, both described here for the first time, shed light on the execution of a years-long operation which has struck unprecedented blows against Israel's Iran-backed Lebanese foe and pushed the Middle East closer to a regional war.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] pandapoo@sh.itjust.works 5 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

You might have missed my point at the end, but I'm not sure at this point if semantics do matter.

If this was a singular event, or one of several events, they obviously would.

But after a year of daily war crimes and terrorism by the IDF, I genuinely don't know if it actually matters whether or not this one event should be categorized as terrorism, or just a war crime.

Agree with everything else you said, but I wanted to lead with that part first since I crammed in at the bottom of my last comment.

[-] GBU_28@lemm.ee 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I diverged from you, I'll edit to be clear.

I think semantics matter because we hope to compel nation states to act. Phrases like war crimes or terrorism have very different meanings on the global stage, and it's important that "casual" discussion reflect the proper terminology used.

Israel is certainly inspiring quite a bit of "terror" with what they are doing, but they aren't being "terrorists" in the legelese sense. They believe they are conducting security and wartime operations, and much of the global community sees it that way too. What they are increasingly accused of (and obviously guilty of) is massive collateral damage both quantitatively (the number of people hurt) and qualitatively (the way in which they are hurt). If Israel claims to be hunting militants in an ongoing military engagement, then what they are doing is a war crime.

Edit I'd also highlight that "just a warcrime" is not some slap on the wrist accusation.

this post was submitted on 16 Oct 2024
82 points (86.6% liked)

World News

38847 readers
1869 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS