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Comment by BjoernKW | Hacker News Reader

> This is false. Many innocents are killed including children

That article - just like all other sources - mentions one 8-year-old girl, not "many innocents" and not several children either. Hence, this is deliberate misinformation.

> You can't determine where the device is when the bomb is activated.

You absolutely can. It's highly likely to be in the targeted person's pocket. Where else would it be?

After all, people usually don't hand their phones to random strangers or leave them lying around - and those pagers aren't even mere personal devices used for private purposes. Why would any of those devices end up anywhere else but the pocket of the person using it?

> This is an indiscriminate attack.

Launching rockets at civilians is. Blowing up pagers explicitly used for terrorist activities isn't.

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>After all, people usually don't hand their phones to random strangers or leave them lying around - and those pagers aren't even mere personal devices used for private purposes

And even compared to a phone, the limited functionality of a pager means the owner isn't going to hand it to a friend to show them a funny video or sports highlight, or to a kid to let them play games on it.

TBH, toddlers and younger kids would find pagers extremely fun: if you are at home, I wouldn't think that too far fetched.

However, since children causalties are "good anti-propaganda", any more would have certainly been reported, so I doubt there are more. Still, how successful targeting was is anyone's guess.

> You absolutely can. It's highly likely to be in the targeted person's pocket.

This seems intentionally avoiding the point. Duh, it's a pager. The real question is can the person donating the explosive tell if the pocket is completely isolated from innocents or if it's standing in a crowded line sitting very near to a childs head.

I do believe that Israel _tried_ to discriminate but its an explosive, you can only aim those to a point. Israel wasn't deliberately trying to kill children/harm innocents, Isreal did knowingly engage in a set of actions where it was possible outcome.

I want to be clear i am not trying to choose a side. These are actions of war in the 21st century.

> After all, people usually don't hand their phones to random strangers or leave them lying around - and those pagers aren't even mere personal devices used for private purposes. Why would any of those devices end up anywhere else but the pocket of the person using it?

I leave my phone all the time, my kids are actually playing games on it. Also, I can be on public transportation, I can be driving, near a flammable object, or boarding a plane. As demonstrated an 8-year-old girl died, it's enough proof that an innocent died.

I think the part you are missing is that this was not an ordinary cellphone. These were pagers handed out by Hezbollah to the militants in their organization so they could communicate, specifically because they did not want to use ordinary cellphones out of fear of being tracked.

The only person who would be likely to have such a pager is a Hezbollah militant who is deemed responsible for secret Hezbollah information (i.e. mid-to-high ranking members). While it is technically possible that such a pager would get into the wrong hands, that would be the fault of the person who left his pager on the table or let his family play with it.

I think the struggle here is that the combatants aren't on a battlefield in these modern wars. They're walking around a city full of civilians. Observing this it's hard not to feel like it wasn't a military target, however it clearly was.

Not only that, but from reports, it sounds like they deliberately sent an alert several seconds before detonation to ensure that the user of the pager would be the direct target. Or perhaps that was just the time it took for the fuse to detonate the explosive? Either way, some of the videos out there show the incredible precision that the owner of the pager was taken down and people in the vicinity were unscathed.

> While it is technically possible that such a pager would get into the wrong hands, that would be the fault of the person who left his pager on the table or let his family play with it.

What the hell? Why isn't it the fault of the one who detonates the bomb? This sets a dangerous precedent for attacking unsuspecting army personnel, even when they're off-duty. I don't think people's stance would be the same if this were done to off-duty IDF or US Army personnel and when they just doing ordinary things in public, for example. Moreover, Hezbollah is also a political party, and it's not just their military wing that's being targeted.

Given that the pagers are for secret messages to be sent between militants, it would be highly unlikely for them to end up in the wrong hands unless the militant is being irresponsible.

Certainly you would not expect somebody in the military to leave a loaded gun around the house. But, also it should be obvious that they would not leave their radio device for transmitting top-secret information either due to the implications of having such information and how that would affect the safety of family members.

It is likely that nobody could have expected their pager to literally explode. But, military or merely involved in the "political" side, anybody who lets their family play with such a radio/pager is putting their family at risk.

>This sets a dangerous precedent for attacking unsuspecting army personnel

Israel and Hezbollah are at a state of war. Hezbollah is a paramilitary organisation that does not meaningfully distinguish between military and civilian staff. There is already a very clear legal precedent - being an unsuspecting or off-duty combatant offers you no protection under international humanitarian law. Unless you're hors de combat, you're a legitimate target at all times. Sabotage of this type is an entirely legitimate ruse of war.

By that logic, aren't the vast majority of Israeli adults legitimate military targets due to mandatory conscription and reserve service?

"While in some countries, entire segments of the population between certain ages may be drafted into the armed forces in the event of armed conflict, only those persons who are actually drafted, i.e., who are actually incorporated into the armed forces, can be considered combatants. Potential mobilization does not render the person concerned a combatant liable to attack."

https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v1/rule3

> This sets a dangerous precedent for attacking unsuspecting army personnel, even when they're off-duty.

Warzones don't have a day shift and a night shift...

All of Lebanon is not an active Warzone

Yep. That happens. It’s war.

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