Israel Built a Modern-Day Trojan Horse: Exploding Pagers(nytimes.com)
nytimes.com
Israel Built a Modern-Day Trojan Horse: Exploding Pagers
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/18/world/middleeast/israel-exploding-pagers-hezbollah.html
33 comments
> According to the BBC, of the 12 killed by pages, four were doctors, so it looks like Israel targeted hospitals as part of this attack.
Someone being a doctor does not prevent them from being a Hezbollah operative, al-Zawahiri was also a doctor. The proportion seems to be too high for that explanation alone, but also could be a coincidence given the small sample.
> They also must have known that many of these bombs would detonate in public places where they would injure many civilians. I suspect the be breakdown of the thousands injured will disproportionately be innocent bystanders.
Why do you suspect that, given that on all videos of pagers detonating in public places only their owners are injured?
Someone being a doctor does not prevent them from being a Hezbollah operative, al-Zawahiri was also a doctor. The proportion seems to be too high for that explanation alone, but also could be a coincidence given the small sample.
> They also must have known that many of these bombs would detonate in public places where they would injure many civilians. I suspect the be breakdown of the thousands injured will disproportionately be innocent bystanders.
Why do you suspect that, given that on all videos of pagers detonating in public places only their owners are injured?
Why would doctors have Hezbollah pagers or otherwise be involved with Hezbollah?
Also, what other means of attack would have a better combatant/civilian casualty ratio than this? Do you think that dropping bombs or sending in ground forces with M16s would have hit a lower percentage of civilians?
Also, what other means of attack would have a better combatant/civilian casualty ratio than this? Do you think that dropping bombs or sending in ground forces with M16s would have hit a lower percentage of civilians?
Hezbollah is a legitimate political party in Lebanon, like it or not. This means that they have a lot of civilians involved in running a country. Just imagine Russia targeting pro-fascist AfD in Germany and justifying that by "fighting against fascism in Europe." There's 0 doubt everyone would see that as a state-sponsored terror attack and an attack on a German state - an act of war.
If AfD were firing rockets into Russia, Russia would have every right to retaliate.
Why would russia attack its puppets ?
Didn't you forgot the part where the AfD would fire thousands of rockets into Russia just this year?
Hezbollah formed a party later for political reasons. It exists to attack Israel and Israel is more than allowed to defend itself and that includes such offensives.
Are you actually serious with this comparison? Because frankly, this is beyond uninformed.
Hezbollah formed a party later for political reasons. It exists to attack Israel and Israel is more than allowed to defend itself and that includes such offensives.
Are you actually serious with this comparison? Because frankly, this is beyond uninformed.
There is no such thing as a Hezbollah pager. They are gold Apollo pagers. It is completely normal for doctors to have pagers.
i thought Hezbollah had their own broadcast pager network for their pagers for security reasons. a trigger sent out on that frequency would only affect Hezbollah, no?
We don't know how exactly how the trigger mechanism worked. It was an import of pager batteries that were intercepted and replaced, it's plausible that someone else using a pager in the country would be affected if they had received a pager battery from the same batch
Agreed.
A targeted strike against enemy combatants (with minimal civilian deaths) is LEGAL WAR.
Indiscriminate booby traps into a civilian population (regardless of the original buyer) is definitely TERRORISM.
At this point, Israel’s detractors will say morally it’s no different than Hamas.
The dropping of bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima was TERRORISM as well as well as the fire bombing of London and Dresden.
A targeted strike against enemy combatants (with minimal civilian deaths) is LEGAL WAR.
Indiscriminate booby traps into a civilian population (regardless of the original buyer) is definitely TERRORISM.
At this point, Israel’s detractors will say morally it’s no different than Hamas.
The dropping of bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima was TERRORISM as well as well as the fire bombing of London and Dresden.
lies.
You can see the official Hizbollocs funeral pamphlets, they are all terrorists
Here's the "how" --- shell companies
He (Nasrallah) had been pushing for years for Hezbollah to invest instead in pagers, which for all their limited capabilities could receive data without giving away a user’s location or other compromising information, according to American intelligence assessments.
Even before Mr. Nasrallah decided to expand pager usage, Israel had put into motion a plan to establish a shell company that would pose as an international pager producer.
By all appearances, B.A.C. Consulting was a Hungary-based company that was under contract to produce the devices on behalf of a Taiwanese company, Gold Apollo. In fact, it was part of an Israeli front, according to three intelligence officers briefed on the operation. They said at least two other shell companies were created as well to mask the real identities of the people creating the pagers: Israeli intelligence officers.
B.A.C. did take on ordinary clients, for which it produced a range of ordinary pagers. But the only client that really mattered was Hezbollah, and its pagers were far from ordinary. Produced separately, they contained batteries laced with the explosive PETN, according to the three intelligence officers.
The pagers began shipping to Lebanon in the summer of 2022 in small numbers, but production was quickly ramped up after Mr. Nasrallah denounced cellphones.
He (Nasrallah) had been pushing for years for Hezbollah to invest instead in pagers, which for all their limited capabilities could receive data without giving away a user’s location or other compromising information, according to American intelligence assessments.
Even before Mr. Nasrallah decided to expand pager usage, Israel had put into motion a plan to establish a shell company that would pose as an international pager producer.
By all appearances, B.A.C. Consulting was a Hungary-based company that was under contract to produce the devices on behalf of a Taiwanese company, Gold Apollo. In fact, it was part of an Israeli front, according to three intelligence officers briefed on the operation. They said at least two other shell companies were created as well to mask the real identities of the people creating the pagers: Israeli intelligence officers.
B.A.C. did take on ordinary clients, for which it produced a range of ordinary pagers. But the only client that really mattered was Hezbollah, and its pagers were far from ordinary. Produced separately, they contained batteries laced with the explosive PETN, according to the three intelligence officers.
The pagers began shipping to Lebanon in the summer of 2022 in small numbers, but production was quickly ramped up after Mr. Nasrallah denounced cellphones.
The point was not to kill them, but to maim and blind them. The thousands of blind, neutered and armless terrorists will for generations remind everyone in the Middle East that you don't f*ck with Israel. The same applies to Gaza which is now unsuitable for living.
They also thought about not harming uninvolved people, and also there's so much explosives you can fit inside a pager anyway.
This attack vector applies to all modern electronics and privacy conscious consumers will take note. Not only are electronics almost certainly willingly backdoored for the government but now tomorrow if the need is great enough your phone becomes a remote IED. With configure-to-order now standard, all those on a watchlist get a little something extra in their stocking. Why stop there? How about a little cyanide for their prescription? This is a rather terrible precedent for the economy. That said, it was fair game.
Also this recent thread is worth revisiting I think;
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41551564
Also this recent thread is worth revisiting I think;
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41551564
It's extremely hard to say anything meaningful about anything and try to be PC without sounding like you are "lauding" something when you are merely reporting it. Furthermore, journalism isn't what it used to be. Newspapers are dying and can't afford staff writers like they once did and a lot of so-called "journalism" these days is written by some underpaid freelancer who doesn't actually have any particular expertise for that kind of writing and may not even be particularly good at writing diplomatically for an extremely diverse global audience which is quite challenging to do.
The Internet fundamentally changed a lot of things and we still haven't sorted out all the bugs it caused in a system that was never perfect but worked better when your audience was more limited, among other things.
Just stating clearly you see this as terrorism while indicating your sources say Israel is behind it but you can't prove it is a potential legal minefield for the publication, so the writer likely was explicitly told they absolutely could not make both assertions in the same piece.
I took too long to write this and I can no longer post it as a reply to the now flagged dead comment which inspired it.
Edit: it's also a dupe and this headline looks more hn neutral:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41580205
The Internet fundamentally changed a lot of things and we still haven't sorted out all the bugs it caused in a system that was never perfect but worked better when your audience was more limited, among other things.
Just stating clearly you see this as terrorism while indicating your sources say Israel is behind it but you can't prove it is a potential legal minefield for the publication, so the writer likely was explicitly told they absolutely could not make both assertions in the same piece.
I took too long to write this and I can no longer post it as a reply to the now flagged dead comment which inspired it.
Edit: it's also a dupe and this headline looks more hn neutral:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41580205
You seem to be confused about the legal issues. For a newspaper to state that they "see" something as terrorism (regardless of whether it really is terrorism) is absolutely a protected opinion under the 1st Amendment, and libel and slander statutes. This is settled law with zero ambiguity. The NY Times gets sued frequently and the editors don't self censor over imaginary concerns about frivolous lawsuits.
Shocking to me that a terrorist attack by Israel is being lauded in the New York Times (and indeed on HN).
This was not a terrorist attack. This was a precisely targeted strike against the personnel of a hostile military.
This was a retaliation for an attack on unit 8200 headquarters, which was a retaliation for the assassination of a Hesbollah commander (https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/which-hezbollah-ha...) which was... you can see where this is going.
What do know for a fact is that Israel bombs Palestine constantly, targets infrastructure, won't let them build a port, denies access to food and water, targets aid workers, shot children in the legs with live ammunition en mass who did not pose an imminent threat (See: South Africa's ICC case) There is no city in Israel that looks like Gaza. There are no west bank settlements into Israel. The Palestinians do not have checkpoints in Israel, or occupy Israel.
The widespread starvation in Gaza is well documented, and Israel could prevent it easily if they would just let them get food, but Israel is deliberately not letting food in. Think about that.
They're using starvation as a weapon, but it's OK because they're starving people in self-defence?
What do know for a fact is that Israel bombs Palestine constantly, targets infrastructure, won't let them build a port, denies access to food and water, targets aid workers, shot children in the legs with live ammunition en mass who did not pose an imminent threat (See: South Africa's ICC case) There is no city in Israel that looks like Gaza. There are no west bank settlements into Israel. The Palestinians do not have checkpoints in Israel, or occupy Israel.
The widespread starvation in Gaza is well documented, and Israel could prevent it easily if they would just let them get food, but Israel is deliberately not letting food in. Think about that.
They're using starvation as a weapon, but it's OK because they're starving people in self-defence?
This terrorist attack even came in the anniversary of another high profile Zionism terror attack: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folke_Bernadotte
Maybe not so much lauded as put forth for its audacity.
They also must have known that many of these bombs would detonate in public places where they would injure many civilians. I suspect the be breakdown of the thousands injured will disproportionately be innocent bystanders.
Claiming this was a targeted military attack is ludicrous.