Live updates: Israel says it has plans to strike Lebanon, hours after walkie talkie explosions injure hundreds
Live updates: Israel says it has plans to strike Lebanon, hours after walkie talkie explosions injure hundreds
Hezbollah officials and Lebanon's state media say explosions went off in Beirut and multiple parts of Lebanon. Officials said that walkie-talkies and even solar equipment detonated a day after hundreds of pagers blew up.
Israel’s army chief says Israel has drawn up plans for additional action against Hezbollah and is ready to strike.
“We have many capabilities that we have not yet activated,” Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said after approving new operational plans at Israel’s Northern Command on Wednesday.
“Every time we work at a certain stage, the next two stages are ready to go forward strongly,” he says. “At each stage, the price for Hezbollah needs to be high.”
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How is setting off little bombs amongst a civilian population not terrorism?
Because the terrorist label is handed by the West.
Wait till they start dropping the big bombs. Then it'll be even less like terrorism and you'll be called antisemitic for suggesting otherwise.
It's because it's Israel, if you say they are terrorists, you're antisemitic.
I guess I'm antisemitic now.
Once it becomes a war, they're no longer terrorists, just soldiers.
Then why do almost all Western countries consider Hezbollah a terrorist organization?
Any number of reasons.
And obviously it becomes a war only when we (the collective West) label it as such, otherwise it's still just terrorists. They become soldiers only when it's convenient for us.
It becomes a war when the other side returns fire.
The fire has started in 1948.
It is terrorism
Because they are at war. And yes, it's an official war. Hezbollah declared war well prior to this and has been firing rockets into Israel. Hence, this is a retaliatory attack by Israel. It's no different than bombing or firing missiles, it's just far more targeted at Hezbollah members since it's their electronics. Unfortunately innocent civilian casualties are always a part of war, but this type of attack actually minimizes them far more than just straight bombing would.
The US State Department designated Hezballah as a foreign terrorist organization in October 1997. More than 60 other countries and organizations, including the EU, the Arab League, and the Gulf Cooperation Council, have also designated Hizballah—either in part or in its entirety—as a terrorist group.
There is an old saying that a terrorist is someone who has a bomb, but not an airforce to drop it.
What a load of ghoulish warmongering. Oh it's war? If Hezbollah had done this to Israelis, the world would be crying blood and vowing for Israel's right to defend itself.
It is war. And what Israel did was smart tactically. Also, collateral damage is part of every war. Even more so when the enemy entrenches itself among civilians.
Strange how this talk of "collateral" damage only applies to when Israelis kill civilians and not when, say, Hamas or Hezbollah do it.
Using your own despicable and dehumanizing approach, October the 7th merely had 797 "collateral victims" for the 379 legitimate Israeli security forces targets. And after all, the 2:1 civilian to military casualties ratio is basically the same as the IDF's own record in Gaza.
Ah what to do, such is war...
No.
Fuck that barbaric way of devaluing the loss of human life.
It applies both ways as far as I'm concerned. I never said otherwise.
I wouldn't consider blatant terrorism 'tactically smart.' Yet, targeting civilians is par for the course for Israel
The doctrine is named after the Dahiya suburb of Beirut, where the Lebanese paramilitary group Hezbollah has its headquarters, which the Israeli military leveled during its assault on Lebanon in the summer of 2006 that killed nearly 1,000 civilians, about a third of them children, and caused enormous damage to the country’s civilian infrastructure, including power plants, sewage treatment plants, bridges, and port facilities.
It was formulated by then-General Gadi Eisenkot when he was Chief of Northern Command. As he explained in 2008 referring to a future war on Lebanon: "What happened in the Dahiya quarter of Beirut in 2006 will happen in every village from which Israel is fired on… We will apply disproportionate force on it (village) and cause great damage and destruction there. From our standpoint, these are not civilian villages, they are military bases… This is not a recommendation. This is a plan. And it has been approved.” Eisenkot went on to become chief of the general staff of the Israeli military before retiring in 2019.
While it became official Israeli military doctrine after Israel’s 2006 attack on Lebanon, Israel’s military has used disproportionate force and targeted Palestinian, Lebanese, and other civilians since Israel was established in 1948 based on the ethnic cleansing of indigenous Palestinians, including dozens of massacres to force them to flee for their lives.
Not terrorism in the slightest. Get a clue.
We will apply disproportionate force on it (village) and cause great damage and destruction there. From our standpoint, these are not civilian villages, they are military bases… This is not a recommendation. This is a plan. And it has been approved.”
Um... So you're either full of shit or you need a vocabulary refresher. That literally says that they will destroy villages despite the absurdly disproportionate civilian death toll, because "from their standpoint" they're not "civilian villages" (whatever the fuck THAT means).
Genocide apologist scumbag.
It's fucking war. The term "genocide" is being broadly used as killing the enemy, the same group of people that wants to torture and slaughter every single Jew in existence.
the same group of people that wants to torture and slaughter every single Jew in existence.
Damn, those must be some really cognitively advanced children.
You're being disingenuous with the "it's war" shit too, but you can go waste someone else's time about that.
So kill their families right?
it's just far more targeted at Hezbollah members since it's their electronics.
We need to wait for the numbers before we can say either way, but I certainly doubt it. The EU foreign policy chief has already condemned the attack as indiscriminate.
Can't wait to hear how all those dead children were actually Hezbollah.
Experts generally believe a small mount of stable explosive was carefully implanted into each sabotaged device. Alan Woodward, a professor of cybersecurity at Surrey University, said: “There wouldn’t need to be much explosive, as proximity to a human body means it would cause injury even if it was a few grams.”
The first wave of explosions – which occurred from about 3.30pm local time on Tuesday – appear to have been triggered by a special message from Hezbollah leadership, implying, Woodward argued, a specific modification of the pagers’ embedded software. This meant it would trigger an explosion when the appropriate message was sent.
It may have been a default setting on the pagers, but the trigger message came with a cynical twist. Eyewitnesses say the pager bleeped, then paused, then detonated – giving enough time for them to be brought closer to the owner’s face – which is why Lebanese doctors reported treating multiple hand and eye injuries after the blast. Source
I find it extremely unsettling, this tactic. It could have hit anyone and I think it should be condemned. Just imagine the outcry if Russia should have done that in the Ukraine.
The Mossad planted explosive devices in the walkie-talkies prior to Hezbollah receiving them so ...
This definitely feels like terrorist attack tactics, since it does more to cause fear than actually fatalities. You make some really good points though, it's unfortunate that you're getting so many downvotes for factual information.
As for the terrorist group designation, you can see a list of all countries and entities that consider Hezbollah a terrorist group here.. It does include both the European Union and the United States, along with many other countries. There are some countries that don't consider them a terrorist group, notably Russia, China, and North Korea.
You don’t have to deny that Hezbollah is a terrorist organization to call these attacks terrorism.
- Hezbollah is a terrorist organization
- Israel is committing acts of terrorism in Lebanon
Both of these statements can be true.
And while in war, there are prohibitions on targeting non-combatants, they don't require that there be no collateral damage. Israel's pretty clearly targeting Hezbollah here, not random Lebanese.
I do wonder if Hezbollah can maybe agree to stay out of part of Lebanon. I don't think that that'd need to compromise either Israel's or Hezbollah's war plans, so maybe it'd be possible to come to some sort of agreement like that; you'd need buy-in from both parties. Then that area could be used as a safe area for Lebanese non-combatants.
Israel's pretty clearly targeting Hezbollah here, not random Lebanese.
Do you have proof for that statement?
Source: IDF said trust me bro.
They tried to target them certainly but there's a huge margin of error involved, wait awhile for all the fallout. I imagine there's going to be more than a few instances of people cracking batteries to find suspicious potentially lethal contents. Guaranteed there's a bunch they didn't pop because farmer Dan or Doctor Jane got it instead.
