Hezbollah’s Exploding Electronics

[Derec]

I heard that they bought the pagers from Boeing.

No, because then they would have malfunctioned and not exploded. They worked as intended.

That said, the death toll and the number injured seems awfully maldistributed. Is Hezbollah not indicating deaths among their ranks and only civilian related collateral damage? Because otherwise, 12 or so including civilians killed seems awfully low.

I don't think so. This image shows the ten dead Hezbollah members the terror group claimed as result of Tuesday's wave.

From an Iranian site. Good riddance to some bad rubbish!

The low death count is more a function of small explosive charges. Pagers are tiny anyway, and so you can only hide a miniscule amount of explosives. The deaths are probably bad luck - a piece of shrapnel piercing the femoral/external iliac or carotid arteries for example.

Note that the second wave, where larger devices like walkie talkies and laptops exploded had slightly more deaths but far fewer injuries suggesting bigger explosive charges but fewer devices involved.

Lebanon's health ministry said 20 people were killed and more than 450 injured on Wednesday in Beirut's suburbs and the Bekaa Valley, while the death toll from Tuesday's explosions rose to 12, including two children, with nearly 3,000 injured.

Hezbollah devices explode again in Lebanon, raising fears of wider Israel conflict

The other question is who fed them the line about the cell phones being a problem. I'm wondering if Israel successfully trolled Hezbollah into swapping phones for pagers... and then did this, or whether they got word of the shift in plans by Hezbollah and a light bulb went off.

From what I heard, the change had to do with Hezbollah being bothered by many targeted killings of their leaders in recent months, and (the quite reasonable) suspicion that they were tracked using their cell phones.

Coded messages. Landline phones. Pagers. Following the killing of senior commanders in targeted Israeli airstrikes, the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group, Hezbollah, has been using some low-tech strategies to try to evade its foe's sophisticated surveillance technology, informed sources told Reuters.
[...]
"We're facing a battle in which information and technology are essential parts," said Qassem Kassir, a Lebanese analyst close to Hezbollah. "But when you face certain technological advances, you need to go back to the old methods - the phones, the in-person communications … whatever method allows you to circumvent the technology."

How Hezbollah used pagers and couriers to counter Israel's high tech surveillance

The great thing here is that Hezbollah has to quadruple think buying any electronic communication device now. It sounds like Israel achieved more in this maneuver than they have in 11 months in Gaza against Hamas. And with a substantially muted amount of collateral damage.

It was a great intelligence coup for sure.

I hope that this isn't something Iran can easily try themselves, regarding miniaturized explosives, not pagers. No one uses those.

They may try, but it is by no means an easy feat to insert explosives into devices. You have to insert yourself into the supply chain without anyone noticing.

 

[Derec]

NY Post does not disappoint with their title headline.

NY's AOC, on the other hand, very much disappoints, even if she does not surprise.


I do not recall her being atwitter over Hezbollah's aggression against Israel, including a rocket attack that killed several children and teenagers.
Israel weighs response to Hezbollah after a rocket from Lebanon kills 12 youths on a soccer field

 

[Politesse]

I just don’t see this as helping Israel’s wish to end fighting.

END fighting? They're waging war against multiple nations, targeting children, devising "clever" ways to advance military lethality against civilians at every opportunity... Israel is among the most murderous nations that still exists, oppressing the tiny nation that is their only imperial possession and fighting wars by means that most civilized nations abandoned more than a half century ago. Their conduct is inexcusable, and they obviously intend to drag my nation into their foolish wars. I despise Benjamin Netanyahu and his entire cabal to a degree that I reserve for few.

 

[Harry Bosch]

I just don’t see this as helping Israel’s wish to end fighting.

END fighting? They're waging war against multiple nations, targeting children, devising "clever" ways to advance military lethality against civilians at every opportunity... Israel is among the most murderous nations that still exists, oppressing the tiny nation that is their only imperial possession and fighting wars by means that most civilized nations abandoned more than a half century ago. Their conduct is inexcusable, and they obviously intend to drag my nation into their foolish wars. I despise Benjamin Netanyahu and his entire cabal to a degree that I reserve for few.

Actually, it was Hezbollah that started this war. They attacked Isrrael on October 8. They've been launching missiles at Israel every single day since then. As an aside, their military is far more powerful than Hamas. I'd agree that the current leadership of Israel is mostly far right members who want war and expansion. But I have as much sympathy for Hezbollah soldiers as I do for Russian soldiers invading Ukraine.

 

[marc]

If anything, I see this as killing Israel's electronics exports. Who is going to buy electronics made there?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

It is difficult to get a good feel for the accuracy of the reporting, but it sounds like it wasn't just Hezbollah members who had these devices. If this was a more random attack, that didn't discriminate regarding who had possession, this would be be very unethical.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

From bbc - the number of dead is low, it, it was the number of wounded - some, including more children, severely

Lebanon’s health minister says the number of people killed when pagers used by members of the armed group Hezbollah exploded on Tuesday has risen to 12, including two children and four healthcare workers.

But of the dead, it looks like 50% children and healthcare workers?

Ms Chamoun said the pagers had “emitted a sound before being detonated to encourage people to take them out of their pockets or from their desks and lift them to their heads”.

This is so cold. It’s like ambushing someone from cover in their own town. This beep is what made innocents pick up the devive to hand it to the owners. This beep maximized civilian deaths, instead of making it go off when it was being used.


I just don’t see this as helping Israel’s wish to end fighting.

Yeah but who cares about innocents? Just stop thinking about it and be a mindless idiot.

 

[laughing dog]

If they targeted against members of a terrorist group, no noncombatants are injured.

Bullshit! No operation is perfect. There is always some collateral damage.

You are misinformed in your attempt at apologia for killing and injuring noncombatants.

Neither land mines nor explosive communication devices discriminate among combatants and noncombatants. That is how they two are alike.

The big problem with landmines is when they persists after the hostilities are over. That is especially true if no good mapping was done and they were not appropriately removed from the battlefields.
This was a shipment of pagers distributed to Hezbollah members which went off in a coordinated fashion. There will be no exploding pagers left over to step on years or decades later.

As usual nothing in your response rebuts my point. I showed how they are alike not how they are identical.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

NY Post does not disappoint with their title headline.

NY's AOC, on the other hand, very much disappoints, even if she does not surprise.


I do not recall her being atwitter over Hezbollah's aggression against Israel, including a rocket attack that killed several children and teenagers.
Israel weighs response to Hezbollah after a rocket from Lebanon kills 12 youths on a soccer field

If we allow Hezbollah to set the bar, might as well just bomb Lebanon into the stone age. There is a difference between a simultaneous attack that targets Hezbollah directly... and a widespread attack that indiscriminately sets off explosions in the public. Obviously, managing an attack like this requires the explosions to be at the same time. The problem would be if Israel didn't give a damn about where the explosions took place. Collateral damage will happen. But when it does, you need a lot of targeted damage to overwhelm the collateral damage.

Israel isn't talking and Hezbollah most likely won't be forth coming about their losses if they are big, especially if Israel trolled them into getting these devices in the first place! So we are left in a canyon of ignorance regarding Hezbollah losses and civilian casualties. And if anything else is planned.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I heard that they bought the pagers from Boeing.

No, because then they would have malfunctioned and not exploded. They worked as intended.

That said, the death toll and the number injured seems awfully maldistributed. Is Hezbollah not indicating deaths among their ranks and only civilian related collateral damage? Because otherwise, 12 or so including civilians killed seems awfully low.

I don't think so. This image shows the ten dead Hezbollah members the terror group claimed as result of Tuesday's wave.

From an Iranian site. Good riddance to some bad rubbish!

The low death count is more a function of small explosive charges. Pagers are tiny anyway, and so you can only hide a miniscule amount of explosives. The deaths are probably bad luck - a piece of shrapnel piercing the femoral/external iliac or carotid arteries for example.

Note that the second wave, where larger devices like walkie talkies and laptops exploded had slightly more deaths but far fewer injuries suggesting bigger explosive charges but fewer devices involved.

But how can small devices then lead to so many injuries. The data seems off.

Lebanon's health ministry said 20 people were killed and more than 450 injured on Wednesday in Beirut's suburbs and the Bekaa Valley, while the death toll from Tuesday's explosions rose to 12, including two children, with nearly 3,000 injured.

Hezbollah devices explode again in Lebanon, raising fears of wider Israel conflict

The other question is who fed them the line about the cell phones being a problem. I'm wondering if Israel successfully trolled Hezbollah into swapping phones for pagers... and then did this, or whether they got word of the shift in plans by Hezbollah and a light bulb went off.

From what I heard...

From what you've heard? Dude, if this is something that you've "heard" it is either worthless, or you shouldn't be talking about it.

...the change had to do with Hezbollah being bothered by many targeted killings of their leaders in recent months, and (the quite reasonable) suspicion that they were tracked using their cell phones.

Yes, and they could have organically come up with the idea to swap out, but Israel could have dropped some crumbs for Hezbollah to mistake as good intel.

I hope that this isn't something Iran can easily try themselves, regarding miniaturized explosives, not pagers. No one uses those.

They may try, but it is by no means an easy feat to insert explosives into devices. You have to insert yourself into the supply chain without anyone noticing.

No you don't. You take the device, leave it behind, it explodes. Remember, armed drones were great... when only the US had them.

 

[TV and credit cards]

I just don’t see this as helping Israel’s wish to end fighting.

END fighting? They're waging war against multiple nations, targeting children, devising "clever" ways to advance military lethality against civilians at every opportunity... Israel is among the most murderous nations that still exists, oppressing the tiny nation that is their only imperial possession and fighting wars by means that most civilized nations abandoned more than a half century ago. Their conduct is inexcusable, and they obviously intend to drag my nation into their foolish wars. I despise Benjamin Netanyahu and his entire cabal to a degree that I reserve for few.

Actually, it was Hezbollah that started this war. They attacked Isrrael on October 8. They've been launching missiles at Israel every single day since then. As an aside, their military is far more powerful than Hamas. I'd agree that the current leadership of Israel is mostly far right members who want war and expansion. But I have as much sympathy for Hezbollah soldiers as I do for Russian soldiers invading Ukraine.

So can I take from your closing statement that Hezbollah's beef with Israel has about as much substance behind it as Russia's does with Ukraine? I'll have to dig down on this one. Wikipedia, once again seems to have it assbackwards. I had been warned this might happen.

 

[Derec]

War brings out creativity and ingenuity.

And this was pretty creative and ingenious.

To me it says Israel is worried and getting desperate.

Why? It's more likely that Hamas/Hezbollah are getting desperate.

They can not achieve goals despite mass bombings and killings.

You mean in Gaza? The war (which Gaza started, let me remind you!) is not quite a year old, and IDF managed to kill ~20k fighters, wound many more, and kill many commanders, including top commanders Marwan Issa and Mohammed Deif as well as as some of the leadership abroad like Ismail Haniyeh and Saleh Al-Arouri.

From reporting Hezbollah is well armed and trained, in a fill scale war Israel would not have it so easy. And that Hezbollah has large stockpiles of misses and rockets.

All of them from Iran. But they have used up many of those (they have been shooting rockets at Israel since 10/7) and many others have been destroyed on the ground in airstrikes. In addition, many Hezbollah operatives have been eliminated in recent months, including top commander Fuad Shukr. He was sought for decades by the US for the Beirut barracks bombing.
Hezbollah military commander claimed killed by Israel was blamed by the US for 1983 Marine bombing

But some in the Democratic Socialists of America are mourning his ass, along with eliminated Hamas leader Haniyeh.
Strife in Democratic Socialists of America over mourning Haniyeh, anti-Zionism

A supersonic missile supplied to Yemen penetrated Israeli air defenses.

Another puppet of the Ayatollahs in Tehran. I said way back in 2015 that US should do more against these insurgents and terrorists, because it was neither in US' interest nor in the interest of regional and world peace for Iran to gain control of a piece of the Arabian Peninsula. Turns out I was right.
In any case, luckily the strike did not cause much damage. But I wish Biden had responded more forcefully when Houthis started attacking maritime traffic. Not just striking a few drones here or there, but striking Houthi forces and command and control forcefully. Then they would not be trying this shit.

Who knows what Hezbollah has.

We have a pretty good idea. A variety of missiles mostly supplied by their masters in Tehran.
Which makes Israeli defense against them even more justified.

I think Israel is sowing the seeds of its own destruction.

By defending themselves from Islamist aggression?

 

[Politesse]

It is difficult to get a good feel for the accuracy of the reporting, but it sounds like it wasn't just Hezbollah members who had these devices. If this was a more random attack, that didn't discriminate regarding who had possession, this would be be very unethical.

Terrorism, rather. And it is even if only Hezbollah members owned all the pagers, as the indiscriminate detonation makes it just as likely that some child, friend, or random bystander will be injured.

 

[Politesse]

I just don’t see this as helping Israel’s wish to end fighting.

END fighting? They're waging war against multiple nations, targeting children, devising "clever" ways to advance military lethality against civilians at every opportunity... Israel is among the most murderous nations that still exists, oppressing the tiny nation that is their only imperial possession and fighting wars by means that most civilized nations abandoned more than a half century ago. Their conduct is inexcusable, and they obviously intend to drag my nation into their foolish wars. I despise Benjamin Netanyahu and his entire cabal to a degree that I reserve for few.

Actually, it was Hezbollah that started this war. They attacked Isrrael on October 8. They've been launching missiles at Israel every single day since then. As an aside, their military is far more powerful than Hamas. I'd agree that the current leadership of Israel is mostly far right members who want war and expansion. But I have as much sympathy for Hezbollah soldiers as I do for Russian soldiers invading Ukraine.

You think I wrote what I did because I'm unaware that this was intended as a revenge killing?

I do not recognize as a valid principle that a provocation justifies any form of retaliation however sadistic. Our international order cannot remain stable if it hands a blank check to any party that thinks "the other guy started it".

 

[Derec]

Israel is killing a lot of people but seems to me to be sprung its wheels.

The war objectives have not been met yet. Hamas is still in power in Gaza internally. And Hamas is still holding many hostages and refuses to release them without unreasonable concessions. But the war has not been going that long compared to say US wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. And in this time Israel managed to kill many Hamas and allied fighters, including many commanders, as well as dismantle much of Hamas' terror infrastructure, especially the tunnels.

The beeper bombs to me says desperation.

Why?

Netanyahu faces prosecution when he is out of office, it is in his interest to keep the war going. But it has backfired, the war is not ending and there is growing demand he step down.

I understand hostage families' frustration. But a "deal" is not a solution as long as Hamas continues to demand release of thousands of terror prisoners for it. Regardless of Bibi's personal motivations, the war needs to continue until Hamas modifies their demands. Maybe once IDF manages to kill Yahya Sinwar the next guy will be more amenable to reason.

In Vietnam it went to retorting body counts implying we were killing more VC and NVA than they could replace. We lost despite superior weapons. We were always 'winning'.

US lost in Vietnam because of Walter Cronkite et al, not because we were defeated militarily. But Vietnam was across the world, not next door. And North Vietnam never invaded US, killing thousands and kidnapping hostages, nor has North Vietnam vowed to destroy the US and establish a communist dictatorship on the entire US territory. So the stakes are quite a bit higher.

Israel's treatment of Palestinians created the threat in the first place.

No, it did not. Islamist desire to destroy Israel did.

We are mainly hearing the conservative Israeli narrative over here not the Israeli opposition to settlements.

Settlements are not a major issue. All settlements in Gaza had been dismantled, and yet that has not led to a decrease in hostility from Gaza.

Even as this is all going on Israelis are moving into and occupying Palestinian land.

What do you consider "Palestinian land"?

At his point I see no moral high ground for Israel.

Compared to Palestinians, Hezbollah and the Iranian theocrats, Israel is on Mount Everest.

 

[Politesse]

Islamist desire to destroy Israel did.

Why?

 

[Derec]

Signing off for now. Leaving you with a funny:

Rashida Tlaib (Hamas-MI) is apparently ticked off at all the Hezbollah pager memes such as this one:

 

[Derec]

Islamist desire to destroy Israel did.

Why?

Because Israelis do not want to be destroyed. Duh!

But some people think Israel not letting themselves be genocided by islamofascists is itself "genocide". Truly an Orwellian instance of reversing offender and victim.

 

[Politesse]

Islamist desire to destroy Israel did.

Why?

Because Israelis do not want to be destroyed. Duh!

But some people think Israel not letting themselves be genocided by islamofascists is itself "genocide". Truly an Orwellian instance of reversing offender and victim.

No, why do the Islamists wish to destroy Israel?

 

[Derec]

No, why do the Islamists wish to destroy Israel?

Does it really matter? Probably a similar reason why Nazis tried to exterminate the Jews.
In fact, these two loathsome groups worked on that plan together in the 1940s.