Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

[Ungnome]

Seems that I overestimated the number of Jewish people living outside of Israel. Somehow I thought it was larger.

 

[PrimalxConvoy]

It's dangerous to mix up nationality and ethnicity. Some Jews are Israeli, but the majority are not. It's things like that that foster xenophobic animosity.

I didn't mix up nationality and ethnicity. I simply thought the article was about someone from Israel, which is why I used "Israeli" rather than "Jew".

 

[PrimalxConvoy]

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) says six of its employees have been killed in an Israeli air strike on a school it runs in central Gaza.

Gaza's Hamas-run Civil Defence agency said a total of 18 people were killed in Wednesday’s strike on al-Jaouni school in Nuseirat refugee camp, which is being used as a shelter by thousands of displaced Palestinians.
Israel's military said it carried out a “precise strike on terrorists” planning attacks from the school, and that it had taken measures to avoid harm to civilians.

UN Secretary General António Guterres condemned the strike, saying: “What’s happening in Gaza is totally unacceptable".

 

[Teufel]

At least hundreds wounded as pagers used by Hezbollah members mysteriously explode simultaneously across Lebanon.

Link

At least eight people were killed and 2,800 injured in Lebanon after an alleged Israeli attack in the country caused hand-held communications devices used by Hezbollah operatives to blow up at the same time, according to reports on Tuesday.

Iran's Ambassador to Lebanon Mojtaba Amani was among those hurt in the blasts.

According to Syrian sources, four were injured while riding in a vehicle in Damascus, caused by the explosion of one of the devices that was in the car.

Initial reports varied in the amount of people killed and wounded, with some saying that hundreds had been wounded. The Lebanese National Broadcasting Network (NBN) channel said that Israel "used advanced technology" against Hezbollah, which hit when it was claimed that such incidents occurred in more than one place in the Dahieh of Beirut. Reuters said that the attack was the "biggest intelligence breach yet," citing a Hezbollah official.

 

[abates]

What frigging brand of pager is explosive enough to kill someone?

 

[Ungnome]

Wounded, not killed(though i'm sure there may be a few fatalities. either due to the person already being in a weakened state or due to it happening while they were driving causing them to crash or something) I still wonder how this was pulled off, though. Must have been some major flaw in the design of those pagers to allow an exploit to cause the batteries to overheat on command.

 

[Dekafox]

Nothing to do with batteries - batteries, even overheating, don't blow like that and IIRC it was just a pair of AAs. Leading suggestion is that they were intercepted mid-shipment and had an explosive planted inside them. Sometimes, the old plays work the best, and the Mossad don't play around.

In the real world, threat models are much simpler (see Figure 1). Basically, you’re either dealing with Mossad or not-Mossad. If your adversary is not-Mossad, then you’ll probably be fine if you pick a good password and don’t respond to emails from [email protected]. If your adversary is the Mossad, YOU’RE GONNA DIE AND THERE’S NOTHING THAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT. The Mossad is not intimidated by the fact that you employ https://. If the Mossad wants your data, they’re going to use a drone to replace your cellphone with a piece of uranium that’s shaped like a cellphone, and when you die of tumors filled with tumors, they’re going to hold a press conference and say “It wasn’t us” as they wear t-shirts that say “IT WAS DEFINITELY US,” and then they’re going to buy all of your stuff at your estate sale so that they can directly look at the photos of your vacation instead of reading your insipid emails about them. In summary, https:// and two dollars will get you a bus ticket to nowhere.

 

[Ungnome]

Ah, gotcha, though they were lipos, which don't explode, per say, but do ignite rather violently under the right conditions which can result in some pretty severe burns. Quite the work on the Israeli's pulling that off, then.

 

[Thylacine 2000]

That's more like it. Specifically target the fascist militia, leave normal people alone as much as possible.

 

[Monique]

From the reports on CNN it doesn't seem like it was as restrained as all that. Random people also had pagers with explosives and people in the vicinity of the explosions also got injured or worse.

 

[Teufel]

From the dead so far it seems remarkably precise.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1836165455272120775

 

[PrimalxConvoy]

From the BBC:

"Thousands of people have been injured in Lebanon, after pagers used by the armed group Hezbollah to communicate dramatically exploded almost simultaneously across the country on Tuesday.

At least nine people were killed and some 2,800 injured, many of them seriously..."

Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies: How did they explode and who did it?

The attacks left at least 32 dead and thousands injured, but how the blasts occurred remains unclear.

www.bbc.com

 

[wonko the sane?]

I saw a basic report on this last night on my local news: and all I could wonder was why did the pagers have explosives in them in the first place? But yeah, makes sense as a large scale counter intelligence op.

 

[Dekafox]

US officials briefed on it have basically confirmed the explosive additions by Israel, who were tipped off that this was a Hezbollah order - and as to the timing, they've apparently been lobbing low accuracy rockets for weeks into northern Israel, some as recently as Sunday and Monday. Sounds like it was basically a targeted reprisal.

Article on the first part: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/17/world/middleeast/israel-hezbollah-pagers-explosives.html
Paywall removed version: https://archive.is/5PZDJ

*edit*
And now there's reports of a brand of walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah(and bought around 5 months ago, same time as the pagers) going boom in Beirut today.

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-planted-explosives-hezbollahs-taiwan-made-pagers-say-sources-2024-09-18/

According to this article it happened after they announced they'd launched another wave of attacks, so yeah, attempts at targeted reprisal.

 

[Monique]

From the dead so far it seems remarkably precise.

From the BBC:

Hezbollah pagers and walkie-talkies: How did they explode and who did it?

The attacks left at least 32 dead and thousands injured, but how the blasts occurred remains unclear.

www.bbc.com

Yes remarkably precise. There are videos of these things going off in public spaces like supermarkets. If the US had done this the international community would have our heads for it.

 

[Thylacine 2000]

These were specifically Hezbollah devices, not a randomly intercepted shipment to Walmart:

Israel Planted Explosives in Pagers Sold to Hezbollah, Officials Say

Israel carried out its operation against Hezbollah on Tuesday by hiding explosive material within a new batch of Taiwanese-made pagers

dnyuz.com

The pagers, which Hezbollah had ordered from Gold Apollo in Taiwan, had been tampered with before they reached Lebanon.... Over 3,000 pagers were ordered from the Gold Apollo company in Taiwan, said several of the officials. Hezbollah distributed the pagers to their members throughout Lebanon, with some reaching Hezbollah allies in Iran and Syria. Israel’s attack affected the pagers that were switched on and receiving messages.

I'm sure we'll hear more details of civilians deaths, but expect the large majority of all casualties to be legit Hezbollah targets.


Apparently the mass detonations were supposed to be saved for a decapitating strike in the middle of a potential "final" battle with Hezbollah. The bombs were discovered prematurely, so Israel detonated:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/use-it-or-lose-it-israel-reportedly-set-off-pagers-amid-fears-plot-was-exposed/

 

[Teufel]

Yes remarkably precise. There are videos of these things going off in public spaces like supermarkets. If the US had done this the international community would have our heads for it.

With a limited explosive ordinance. The pager explosions are small, the most shared supermarket video the only one hurt is the Hezbollah operative wearing it. It's not as if they wiped out the supermarket or took out a bunch of people nearby.

Link

The blasts were relatively contained, according to footage reviewed by Reuters. In two separate clips from closed-circuit video of supermarkets, the blasts appeared only to wound the person wearing the pager or closest to it.

Video from hospitals and shared on social media appeared to show individuals with injuries to their faces, missing fingers and gaping wounds at the hip where the pager was likely worn.
The blasts did not appear to cause major damage to buildings or start any fires.

Clearly the goal was to harm the person using it and these pagers were ordered specifically by Hezbollah for their own use.

Israel's Mossad spy agency planted a small amount of explosives inside 5,000 Taiwan-made pagers ordered by Lebanese group Hezbollah months before Tuesday's detonations, a senior Lebanese security source and another source told Reuters.

The Lebanese source said the group had ordered pagers made by Taiwan-based Gold Apollo, which several sources say were brought into the country earlier this year. The source identified a photograph of the model of the pager, an AR-924.

Hezbollah fighters began using pagers in the belief they would be able to evade Israeli tracking of their locations, two sources familiar with the group's operations told Reuters this year.

Three security sources told Reuters that the pagers that detonated were the latest model brought in by Hezbollah in recent months.

It is not a coincidence the vast majority of the dead identified from them are Hezbollah. There will be some civilians injured and killed, but these are limited and precise attacks. It's too bad any innocent Lebanese died or were hurt, but Hezbollah started this war and if they stopped lobbing rockets indiscriminately into northern Israel and stopped letting Hamas attack from its territory the fighting would stop immediately.

 

[Ironbite4]

.............it's.....too....bad.....................any....innocent....Lebanese....died or were hurt...............

Ironbite-oh look, I'm seeing red.

 

[Wheelimus]

Might want to step back over that line you just crossed Teuful.

 

[Pale Rider]

.............it's.....too....bad.....................any....innocent....Lebanese....died or were hurt...............

Ironbite-oh look, I'm seeing red.

Funeral Held For 9-Year-Old Girl Killed In Lebanon Pager Explosions

Fatima Abdullah had recently started fourth grade.

www.huffpost.com