[Discussion] The Middle East in Crisis

A place to post and discuss news related to the recent events in Israel, including the Hamas/Islamic Jihad incursion and repercussions.

As folks have said - if any other country set off remote bombs in dozens of locations without knowing who is in the vicinity we would be screaming about war crimes.

Part of the problem is that the civil infrastructure in both Gaza and Southern Lebanon are entirely controlled by entities Israel has determined are "legitimate military targets". You cannot go to a hospital emergency room in Gaza without it being a Hamas hospital. Your kid can't play in an orchestra in Southern Lebanon without it being a Hezbollah youth orchestra. Part of this is because of the foreign influence of Iran, but it is also important to note that repeated invasions and the destruction of civil infrastructure by Israel has created power vacuums in those areas that are naturally filled by those entities. And those two entities are the only ones providing any services of scale in those areas at all.

As a side note, this is why Netanyahu feels he has cover when he bombs schools, hospitals, and refugee camps because he can just scream "Hamas" every time he drops a US made JDAM on a tent encampment full of folks who have lost everything.

In the past, there was *some* care taken by Israel to make sure that targets were identified as members of military leadership or clear combatants. Now, it appears, the fig leaf is entirely off.

FWIW, anyone who was posting here in the early 00's should remember that I was likewise vocally opposed to some of the methods the US used in Iraq and likewise levied accusations of us behaving as a terrorist state with the way we at times seemed to callously accept "collateral damage" in the form of civilian casualties.

This mass IED deployment by Israel easily blows past the bar it took for me to speak out against my own nation.

I think it's too early to say that these were indiscriminate devices, nor were they the product of military action. If the Israeli military were this restrained in its targeting in Gaze, we'd be relieved. The videos show that even close bystanders were unharmed. (If it turns out that most of these hit civilians, then I'm wrong. But that's not what analysts and sources are saying.)

This is not to justify or support this action, because I think the scenario where this would have been smart is now no longer possible, and I deleted a much longer post, but lumping this in with "war crimes" misses a number of important aspects of this when it is considered as what it was, a widely distributed, targeted covert action. (I do think it was a clever bit of spycraft, but that's simply a detached observation.) This was pretty clearly intended to be used as an opener in an operation into Lebanon, in my opinion.

And I think the way it was done was a huge strategic mistake for Israel, and will strengthen Hezbollah in the long run. When your young men have their badges of honor on their bodies, thousands of them, it becomes far easier to recruit, and they become more resolute in their beliefs. Once they heal, I expect Hezbollah to become even stronger and more resilient.

I think that even with the restraint shown in this operation, Israel should not have activated the devices, but rather should have left them to be discovered as object lessons. That would have nullified the propaganda value of all those wounded fighters and associates.

This is getting even worse. More reports of communications devices exploding and even home solar panels. Any electronic device in Lebanon is potentially a bomb now.

Walkie-talkie explosions reported in Lebanon after deadly pager attack

JUST IN: At least nine people were killed and more than 300 were injured according to health officials in Lebanon Wednesday after walkie-talkies detonated in a fresh wave of explosions, one day after pager blasts across the country killed at least 12 people.
Who was behind the pager explosions? CNN has learned Tuesday’s attack, which targeted militant group Hezbollah, was a joint operation between Israel’s intelligence service, Mossad, and the Israeli military. Israel has refused to comment publicly on the explosions.
What Israel told the US: Israeli officials notified the US that the country was going to carry out an operation in Lebanon on Tuesday but did not give any details about what they were planning, according to three sources.
Hezbollah vows retribution: Hezbollah pledged to retaliate against Israel, and the Lebanese government condemned the attack as “criminal Israeli aggression.”

So the military *is* likely involved.

I'm more worried about the walkie-talkies, because they were given to non-fighters - Hezbollah local organizers and such - for organizings rallies and funerals, apparently. Also, you can fit more explosives in them.

Robear wrote:

So the military *is* likely involved.

I'm more worried about the walkie-talkies, because they were given to non-fighters - Hezbollah local organizers and such - for organizings rallies and funerals, apparently. Also, you can fit more explosives in them.

I'm more worried about what else they might have rigged. It's not like once the pagers were a success that then they went out and put bombs in all the walkie-talkies. This was all planned and coordinated well in advance, and there's no telling what other devices they might have rigged at the same time to explode and cause some indiscriminate destruction. Phones? Laptops? Lightbulbs?

Several stories have mentioned solar equipment.

At this point I would suspect anything that has a radio receiver and is newer than 1 year.

Radio receiver AND a lithium battery?

Israel certainly let a potent monster out of the box this time.

The more I think about it, this whole mass IED thing is what Robear described, and is another escalation so that once he's flattened enough tents in Gaza (practically no buildings left at this point) Netanyahu can keep rolling south in an effort to avoid being deposed as President.

Well, rolling north in this case. I think in that regard it shows intent; dollars to donuts they were hoping this would not be detected until they or Hezbollah really kicked off.

Robear wrote:

Well, rolling north in this case. I think in that regard it shows intent; dollars to donuts they were hoping this would not be detected until they or Hezbollah really kicked off.

Yeah, there are some people asking questions about if Israel shot its wad too early.

20 dead, anyway. Hundreds more injured.

Meanwhile, the White House continues to be utter moral failures of Gaza, in almost every way.

It's like Biden is cosplaying LBJ. Good domestic agenda, no second term, foreign policy disaster. He just needs to take his dick out in front of people and he's good to go.

Bfgp wrote:

The whole justification of proportionality in war is out the window with this pager attack. Not that their proportionality argument was acceptable, just saying they can give up the pretense when they're blowing up aid convoys and making thousands of devices into IEDs.

It's the indiscriminate piece that stood out to me here.

A mass explosion with zero idea about who would be in the blast area is damage-your-soul kinda stuff.

surely THIS new form of violence won't be brought back to the imperial core
Prederick wrote:

Meanwhile, the White House continues to be utter moral failures of Gaza, in almost every way.

It's like Biden is cosplaying LBJ. Good domestic agenda, no second term, foreign policy disaster. He just needs to take his dick out in front of people and he's good to go.

I don't read sign language but I swear I saw a wanking motion in there during his response.

Prederick wrote:
surely THIS new form of violence won't be brought back to the imperial core

Considering how the NYPD and ATL police have close ties to the Israeli security apparatus, they're probably ordering a 100 of each.

Top_Shelf, please consider that the explosions in the videos we have show people standing almost shoulder to shoulder, and yet only the wearer is harmed. To me, these are not indiscriminate attacks, but rather ingeniously targeted and intended only to wound. (Edited)

That's why I thought that the Israelis would follow up with conventional attacks, and indeed they have. Not sure where that will go today, or in the next few, however.

Yes, "targeted."

Surgeon 'became robotic' to treat sheer volume of wounded Lebanese

A Lebanese surgeon has described how the sheer volume of severe wounds from two days of exploding device attacks forced him to act "robotic" just to be able to keep working.

Surgeon Elias Jaradeh said he treated women and children but most of the patients he saw were young men. The surgeon said a large proportion were “severely injured” and many had lost the sight in both eyes.

The dead and injured in Lebanon include fighters from Hezbollah – the Iranian backed armed group which has been trading cross-border fire with Israel for months and is classed as a terrorist organisation by the UK and the US.

But members of their families have also been killed or wounded, along with innocent bystanders. Elias Jaradeh described the wounded he treated as looking "mostly civilian".

The bomb attacks – which killed 37 people including two children – have been widely blamed on Israel, which has not claimed responsibility.

Dr Jaradeh, who is also an MP for the Change parliamentary bloc, was working at a specialist eye and ear hospital where some of the most severely wounded people were sent. He said it had taken a toll on the medical teams, himself included.

"And, yes, it's very hard," the surgeon said. "You have to dissociate yourself. More or less, you are robotic. This is the way you have to behave, but inside, you are deeply injured. You are seeing the nation injured."

Surgeons like Dr Jaradeh worked for almost 24 hours continuously on the wounded, many of whom have lost their eyesight or the use of their hands, the country's health minister told the BBC.

Eye specialist Prof Elias Warrak told BBC Arabic that in one night he extracted more damaged eyes than he had previously in his entire career.

"It was very hard," he said. "Most of the patients were young men in their twenties and in some cases I had to remove both eyes. In my whole life I had not seen scenes similar to what I saw yesterday."

Health Minister Firass Abiad told the BBC the victims' injuries would prove life-changing.

“This is something that unfortunately will require a lot of rehabilitation,” he said.

About 3,200 people were injured, most of them in Tuesday's attack which saw thousands of pagers detonated.

Wednesday's attack, which detonated two-way radio devices, wounded about 450 people but was responsible for 25 deaths, twice as many as in Tuesday's blasts.

3,200 totally targeted victims.

Robear wrote:

Top_Shelf, please consider that the explosions in the videos we have show people standing almost shoulder to shoulder, and yet only the wearer is harmed. To me, these are not indiscriminate attacks, but rather ingeniously targeted and intended only to wound. (Edited)

They are indiscriminate though, even if they were meant to be semi-targeted. Yes, the shipments were meant to go mostly to Hezbollah members, but Israel did not know or care if the devices were actually only in the hands of Hezbollah members when they detonated them. I would also say the characterization of them as only being meant to wound is also an undue sanitizing of their motive. They were intended to maim and cause terror, not merely to disable people who would be the ones that would respond to any more traditional action.

And 80+ dead?

And (presumed) non combatants. Although, if you're targeting a bunch of folks in the supply chain for weapons deliveries you're absolutely going to hit people (aren't we at 3k+ injured) that are all along the chain of a weapon (mortar, rifle, ammo, RPG, food? water?) being procured, transported, delivered and stored for some militia in a basement, warehouse, store or whatever. (I have no idea how war law handles a 10yo who is delivering a mortar to a shopkeeper for storage and for usage a few months down the line, but I doubt it's 'OK USA thumbs up!')

I'm not sad that guys who plot bomb attacks or target civilian centers with rockets got hurt.

But this doesn't sound, now, like there was a lot of consideration for avoiding these things blowing up around the dinner table while homework was getting done or changing diapers.

And I seriously doubt that the limiting factor was the morality of collateral damage. More like they could only fit so much explosive without getting caught.

I'm not an Israeli apologist, so now that flag has come out, I'm gonna let this go.

Whoa, sorry. If I'm giving that impression, and sounds like I am, apologies, Ro. I take your point about perhaps this is really, really small explosions. I'm not going to watch vids for my own mental health.

My language in my post above was very terse and not very nuanced.

We may disagree on how to parse the term indiscriminate but I know where you stand on Israel's crimes.

And I say this as someone who a year ago was a lot closer to "FAFO, Hamas," and has now moved to just utter disgust with Netanyahu.

FWIW, that wasn't the intent of my comment, but I simply take issue with the idea that this was "targeted."

Like, yes, they certainly could've caused much more death, but we can also say that about the entirety of their conduct in Gaza.

Putting bombs in pagers and hoping that Hezbollah members buy them - indiscriminate. Putting bombs in pagers that only Hezbollah has purchased but that have not yet shipped - targeted at Hezbollah. No?

Targeted does not mean that there will be no unintended casualties, or that the planners were concerned about them. There were, and it's hard to tell if they were (I lean towards low lethality being deliberate, but not out of kindness). But targeted refers to intended victims, and I think we all agree that Hezbollah members and associates were the intended victims.

I already noted the large disparity in deaths of people unrelated to Hamas in Gaza, and deaths unrelated to Hezbollah in this attack. That's because, again, it's very interesting that Israel did target more closely in Lebanon, and I think figuring out why will lead to some insights into how they intend to deal with Lebanon, and what their worries and intents are. (At this point, I believe Israel will try to fight without just leveling every village they encounter as they did in Gaza. We'll see.)

Or, as I said before, maybe they just didn't care at all and the low lethality was unintended. But we won't know until we consider the different angles in light of the actions of both sides, right?

Israel is now back to paging (bombing) Beirut.

It is important to recognize that Israel is a signer of the International ban on booby traps. So I guess we can just place this on the pile of unresolved war crimes for which Israel will never be held to account.

Robear wrote:

Putting bombs in pagers and hoping that Hezbollah members buy them - indiscriminate. Putting bombs in pagers that only Hezbollah has purchased but that have not yet shipped - targeted at Hezbollah. No?

Targeted does not mean that there will be no unintended casualties, or that the planners were concerned about them. There were, and it's hard to tell if they were (I lean towards low lethality being deliberate, but not out of kindness). But targeted refers to intended victims, and I think we all agree that Hezbollah members and associates were the intended victims.

I already noted the large disparity in deaths of people unrelated to Hamas in Gaza, and deaths unrelated to Hezbollah in this attack. That's because, again, it's very interesting that Israel did target more closely in Lebanon, and I think figuring out why will lead to some insights into how they intend to deal with Lebanon, and what their worries and intents are. (At this point, I believe Israel will try to fight without just leveling every village they encounter as they did in Gaza. We'll see.)

Or, as I said before, maybe they just didn't care at all and the low lethality was unintended. But we won't know until we consider the different angles in light of the actions of both sides, right?

Using your definitions of targeted and indiscriminate, sure, they're targeted attacks. But that is why I said you're characterization of them that way was sanitizing the attacks in a way that Israel does not deserve. The allowable amount of bystander casuaties for an attack to still be called "targeted" is majorly out of whack. It's not a new phenomenon either, this is just the latest example of it. The US is just as guity of stretching the definition of targeted to downplay our own war crimes too. We love to call drone strikes that incude multiple civilian casualties "targeted" as well. Compared to a cluster bomb, sure, but for any attack to be truly targeted in a way that actually matters, their cannot be collateral damage.

I don't mean to imply that you're an apologist for Israel, I know you're not, but you're giving them way too much benefit of the doubt that we all should know by now that they do not deserve. By reusing their watered down definition, it allows them to have more control over the narrative. Rather than a clear and obvious act of terrorism, it's a targeted attack against valid military targets