10-year-old Fatima Jaafar Abdullah was killed in pager explosions in Lebanon.
Israel murders another kid again.
Reported as a biased source and MBFC backs that up… when talking about Turkish issues, they are very pro government.
As this doesn’t readily involve the Turkish government, I’ll allow it.
“MBFC” is basically a single dude’s opinion, containing a shitton of bias. Using it to verify credibility of anything is wrong.
If you have a better solution involving an API we can use for free, I’m open.
I see no issue with the MBFC assessment on this source.
Lots of people said openly “we’d rather not have it at all”. The bot gets downvoted every thread with comments criticizing it. It doesn’t need to exist and is openly harmful.
I understand someone put a lot of work into it, but it simply doesn’t work for what it needs to do. Unless you want to be spreading misinformation, then it works perfectly.
LOL this is the hilarious response of
“Oh yeah?! Don’t have anything better than putting a biased source of credibility attached to every article for no reason other than for people to use to dismiss articles and not read them?!
Well too bad removing it isn’t an option! Find me a different one cause it makes me feel good!”
said the minority.So, in other words, no, you don’t have a better idea. Got it.
Omg… getting reddit flashbacks right now…
Complaining to the mods about things the admins do? Very Reddit…
Are people really arguing with you and not realizing you already ruled in their favor?
Pick your battles people. You don’t bite the hand that’s feeding you and all that…
The only idea you will accept is yours, literally has to be there cause of no particular reason other than personal desires and wants.
Its like saying the only option is punching or kicking children cause you won’t accept the answer of “stop abusing them!”
Maybe just back off and listen? Or at this point I am forced to assume the mods are being paid for including something that has not been positively talked about once. And they are just taking payment.
Oh, no, we’re fully accepting of other ideas. We even had a meeting with another fact checking company who wanted to charge us 6 figures for API access, so that’s a non-starter.
The basics are really simple - You think MBFC is biased? Cite an example and name someone better.
We’re waiting…
You aren’t accepting of other ideas you just want someone to tell you what they are apparently. These “fact checkers” are for making a profit or paying themselves and mostly exist to make you feel good about being picky with what information you ignore in a world where there mostly isn’t good options for any number of reasons depending who you agree with.
You can’t seen to get the idea that we don’t view it as necessary and visual clutter. And the option we are aiming for isn’t a replacement that you seen to be stuck on because, see above.
People aren’t likely to change their stance either it just reconfirms set feelings for the most part unless it is a lie at which point it should already be removed right?
So this is at best a badge for pretending civility. It’s pointless.
This is the point I keep making. Nevermind whatever else is happening in a war - but there’s no need to bring children into it. Whichever side does so - that’s the wrong side.
I am quite shocked after reading the comments. There are some people who believe Israel are the victims, after all what Israel did this past few months.
If anyone else did this, it would be universally recognized as a heinous act of state-sponsered terrorism.
Truly the depravity of Israel knows no limits.
It seems they did learn some stuff from WW2.
Y’know, by the standards of a military assault, this one was actually pretty targeted. So far there’s a handful of children in thousands of casualties, who mostly fit the profile of a military or military-adjacent individual. Compare that to a ground assault of your choice, by any military anywhere.
Let’s shit on them for all the actual atrocities they’ve done.
You mean killing children as par for the course, or killing people who are attending a funerary rite for other people who were killed by the same killer, is somehow not an atrocity?
I think I explained how the children were not par for the course this time, actually. Rage jerk away, but I thought I’d inject some factuality while it’s still uncool.
I get going after your ‘enemy,’ but this is even worse than firing randomly into a crowd of Palestinians. They pushed a button not knowing who would die. This is low, even for them.
I can’t even think of a devil’s advocate argument for this.
I believe the devil’s advocate argument would be that, based on Hezbollah’s internal communications, the Mossad intercepted a shipment of pagers which were being purchased to replace their (potentially compromised) mobile phones, knowing that these were - in theory - being distributed exclusively to Hezbollah operatives. That would make it the most precise military strike of all time.
Everyone who launches a rocket is accepting the possibility of “collateral damage”, but this is surely the most surgical of surgical strikes in history. And yet, yes, they must have accepted the risk of bystander casualties, which just serves to highlight how awful that logic is. It’s definitely not worse than randomly firing into a crowd, though.
That would make it the most precise military strike of all time.
Pretty sure that honor still goes to the R9X Slap Chop. The pager explosions, on the other hand, injured thousands.
I really don’t get it. Other than the “WAOW” factor, this certainly can’t have been a good use of resources for Israel.
They already believed their communications were being intercepted so switched to another method.
That method then literally blew up in their pockets.
The amount of fear and distrust of the supply chain can’t be overstated.
I dunno man. I just feel like if you’re at the point where you can clandestinely intercept huge amounts of your enemy’s personal communication devices, ‘turn them into bombs’ feels like a bit of a low-yield outcome.
In which world getting thousands of Hezbolla operatives unwittingly keeping a bomb in their pocket would not be a good use of resources for Israel?
Because it changes nothing in the long run. So what exactly was so imminent that this had to happen?
what exactly was so imminent that this had to happen?
What was so imminent that Hezbollah had to fire that rocket barrage some days ago?
You don’t seem to understand the nature of this conflict
I meant it more like, why blow up the pagers you spent all this effort to compromise. I would have thought that having access to those devices would be worth more covertly.
I suppose its possible the only thing they could manage to sneak into the devices was explosives though, since you have to take the board apart to find it. Its likely it looked like a board component too.
I feel like people are missing one of the more heinous aspects of this, which is that it injured thousands of people and only managed to kill ~10 of their targets. The outcome of this attack is going to be general terror and potentially hundreds of life altering injuries but very little military advantage.
The advantage is huge. 1000s of militants are now seriously injured and are no longer battle ready. Many will never be again. Massive success for Israel, and one of the most precision strikes ever used. Now there will be fear from any communication devise exploding, there will be 1000s of man hours wasted taking other stuff apart to check it, and morale will be down as well.
How did the compromised pagers not trigger warnings at airport X-rays? I guess lithium batteries and C4 look similar?
They’re about as similar as a nuclear bomb and a portable garbage disposal system
So you’ve seen X-rays of both?
They injured thousands of their targets, killed a few, and only got very little collateral damage
Nasrallah would shit down his prophet’s throat to get this kind of outcome
It’s literally a war crime to attack people who are not actively participating in combat. That includes people who are members of your enemy’s military.
It is a war crime to intentionally attack non-combatants.
Which explains why the IDF has had so many “accidents” recently.
That is absolutely not true. An easy example to disprove your argument would be the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941. The American Navy was caught completely by surprise. At the end of the war, there were some Japanese tried for war crimes, but not for the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor.
I’m willing to argue that the unprovoked attack on Pearl Harbor was replete with war crimes by modern standards. I’ve cited some documentation above. Since doing that I’ve learned that there are also specific prohibitions against booby-trapping: https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/ccw-amended-protocol-ii-1996/article-7 Turns out that Israel has violated many international standards for war crimes and terrorism. It’s simple mystifying to me that any of this is controversial.
I’ll quibble with you on ‘booby trap’. Booby traps are like what Russian is doing in Ukraine when they retreat: putting primed grenades next to doors that will be opened when Ukrainian troops come through. Or maybe later if the Ukrainian troops don’t find the booby traps: civilians who come back to the ‘cleared’ areas. This is why booby trapping is prohibited. The enemy might miss it and later on a civilian might come across it.
The Israelis modified devices meant for military purposes by a para-military organization. These pagers weren’t being sold in local markets to anyone who would buy them.
That includes people who are members of your enemy’s military.
No, members of an enemy’s military are combatants regardless of whether they’re holding a gun or in a firefight at the time. The only exception is personnel such as chaplains and medics.
On the prohibition of indiscriminate attacks:
“© those which employ a method or means of combat the effects of which cannot be limited as required by this Protocol; and consequently, in each such case, are of a nature to strike military objectives and civilians or civilian objects without distinction.”
It’s important to note that this is the consensus of much of the international community and the US (and I presume its surrogate Israel) have not signed on to the above provision despite speaking to support it. The weasely approach we (the US) have taken to these standards really demonstrates how hollow our sentiments are when we feign moral authority in international affairs.
“© those which employ a method or means of combat the effects of which cannot be limited as required by this Protocol; and consequently, in each such case, are of a nature to strike military objectives and civilians or civilian objects without distinction.”
Would you like to explain how setting up bombs within the personal devices of enemy combatants is striking civilians or civilian objects without distinction? Or do you think all collateral damage is a war crime?
Like, fuck’s sake, not every dogshit act by a criminal state like Israel is a war crime. Jesus H. Christ.
It’s important to note that this is the consensus of much of the international community and the US (and I presume its surrogate Israel) have not signed on to the above provision despite speaking to support it. The weasely approach we (the US) have taken to these standards really demonstrates how hollow our sentiments are when we feign moral authority in international affairs.
Was this really all just to say “US BAD” and “US PUPPET ISRAEL”? Holy shit.
First of all, there was no way for Israel to know whether the people they claim to be targeting were combatants when the attack occurred since Israel had no information about the status of these bombs when they chose to detonate them.
Secondly, placing a bomb in a common device that you have every reason to believe will spend much of its time in the proximity of civilians, in homes, markets and other public spaces, and choosing to detonate it without knowledge of the location of the bomb, or it’s proximity to your supposed target, is actively avoiding distinguishing between ‘combatants’ and civilians. I can’t believe that western brain rot requires this to be spelled out for it.
First of all, there was no way for Israel to know whether the people they claim to be targeting were combatants when the attack occurred since Israel had no information about the status of these bombs when they chose to detonate them.
So it’s your view that any explosive that isn’t tracked at all times with 100% accuracy is a war crime.
Uh. ‘Interesting’.
Secondly, placing a bomb in a common device that you have every reason to believe will spend much of its time in the proximity of civilians, in homes, markets and other public spaces, and choosing to detonate it without knowledge of the location of the bomb, or it’s proximity to your supposed target, is actively avoiding distinguishing between ‘combatants’ and civilians. I can’t believe that western brain rot requires this to be spelled out for it.
‘Western brain rot’, apparently, is when someone else disproves your utterly and blatantly incorrect claim about the definition of a war crime and then you flail around desperately seeking another justification for your claim once disproven. Okay.
18 U.S. Code § 2441 - War crimes
Prohibited conduct: “(D) Murder.— The act of a person who intentionally kills, or conspires or attempts to kill, or kills whether intentionally or unintentionally in the course of committing any other offense under this subsection, one or more persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including those placed out of combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause”
-According to Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, combatants are:
the armed forces of a party to a conflict, and also groups and units that are under a command responsible to that party for the conduct of its subordinates, even if that party is answerable to a government or an authority not recognized by an adverse party. Such armed forces shall be subject to an internal disciplinary system, which, inter alia, shall enforce compliance with the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict
According to this rule, when military medical and religious personnel are members of the armed forces, they are nevertheless considered non-combatants. According to the First Geneva Convention, temporary medical personnel have to be respected and protected as non-combatants only as long as the medical assignment lasts (see commentary to Rule 25).[14] As is the case for civilians (see Rule 6), respect for non-combatants is contingent on their abstaining from taking a direct part in hostilities.
The military manuals of Germany and the United States point out that there can be other non-combatant members of the armed forces besides medical and religious personnel. Germany’s Military Manual explains that “combatants are persons who may take a direct part in hostilities, i.e., participate in the use of a weapon or a weapon-system in an indispensable function”, and specifies, therefore, that “persons who are members of the armed forces but do not have any combat mission, such as judges, government officials and blue-collar workers, are non-combatants”.[15] The US Naval Handbook states that “civil defense personnel and members of the armed forces who have acquired civil defense status” are non-combatants, in addition to medical and religious personnel.[16]
Non-combatant members of the armed forces are not to be confused, however, with civilians accompanying armed forces who are not members of the armed forces by definition.[17]
Correct.
Killing civilians isn’t a war crime. Deliberately killing civilians, or not taking reasonable steps to minimize civilian casualties is a war crime.
“Small” explosive that is embedded in something passed to and likely worn by the target is unlikely to be a war crime. If they somehow snuck a 1000lb bomb into one it absolutely would be however.
Booby trapping objects associated with daily civilian use is a war crime
These pagers were distributed to doctors and nurses, so I would also argue that they were booby trapping medical supplies, which are protected.
Close - you’re looking at letter, not action and intentions.
Booby traps are banned for use in ways that are likely to be used by civilians and remove protections on the civilian population. Things like placing explosives on public transport, the side of the road, in marketplaces or protected places. Targeted strikes, like on a piece of civilian equipment that is likely to only be used by the target (cellphone, personal vehicle, laptop) are permitted as they are unlikely to be set off by a random civilian.
What is a question, however, is if the targets were actually combatants.
There is no chance Mossad wasn’t aware that these pagers were distributed to civilians.
Not that I think the Israel is the good guy in this conflict, but your argument is pretty weak.
Pager are designed to be trackable. If you have such deep access to these devices, you know exactly who got called by whom and when.
Yes, there will be collateral damage, but that’s almost a given in any armed conflict.
If these were one-way pagers,they are not easy to track, as they don’t transmit messages, but only receive and display them.
…and you know which telephone numbers send data to the pager and at which time. That is sufficient to track or identify individuals.
If this is a supply chain attack, the attacker already knows, which pagers are part of the organization they want to target.
What this thread here shows really well, is that the general population vastly underestimates the abilities of intelligence agencies and technology in general.
So which armed conflict in the middle of Beirut are you talking about now?
I wonder about the technical part of this.
Was it timer based?
Was it based upon which number sent a message?
A lot of the ideas I have would require a huge technical operation, instead of the “just added explosives” angle.
There are videos capturing lots of explosions going off simulataneously. Since pagers already can recieve messages and these devices were deeply infiltrated, they likely added a special trigger message to set them off. THis could also allow other scenarios, like only setting off one (for whatever reason).
Well yes but then you’d have to send all those messages, not too hard for a big organisation, but to make a specific message trigger it you would have to do something to the chips on it. And that’s what I’m wondering.
you really might not.
before there were mobile phones there was analog dtmf wired telephones. they replaced pulse dialing and allowed for all kinds of additional signalling and triggering. ring a bell, operate a relay, kick people off so you could call the president, entire automated analog switching centers, you name it.
when mobile networks came on the scene there were all sorts of additional triggers but because the (second gen? the ones that could do sms) signals were actually digital, there was a much wider array of possibilities. dtmf had a handful of frequencies it supported and if you wanted to do something more you had to basically make sure the entire network you were using could send, transport and receive those frequencies.
now imagine instead of sixteen combinations of frequencies played at the same time you have access to thousands of possible triggers. once you have simple stuff like the basic receiving of text and lighting a led or playing one of several legally distinct jingles covered, you could do do much more. and people did. there were all kinds of things pagers could do through combinations of local interface and digital communication with a cell tower, all mediated through a handful of baseband chips on the pager pcb that could have the pins for stuff they wouldn’t be used for disconnected.
but how would you make a pager set off an explosive?
well, the same way you use a casio f91w wristwatch to. you use its built in functionality (the speaker when the alarm goes off) to trigger a battery that can deliver enough electricity into a resistor to heat it up enough to make your (primary) explosive detonate.
in the case of a pager, those baseband chips have all kinds of on and off switching built in. it’s not hard to imagine that basic, out of the box functionality would include pulling a pin high when it gets “*97” or some such. now tie that pin to the base of a transistor across the positive and negative terminals of the battery and sitting against a little petn and you got yourself a remotely triggered explosive.
you wouldn’t even need a pcb.
there’s probably a lot of stuff thats incorrect in this reply. it’s late and this is off the dome.
It is a huge technical operation to intercept an order and replace it with modified devices without the target knowing. Particularly when the target has to be extra careful in ordering things in the first place to avoid sanctions.
In contrast sending out an “execute order 66” message is pretty trivial to trigger them
How would this message trigger the explosive?
Taking control of a shipping container, opening all of pagers and adding some explosives is obvious and not too hard for people with that power.
Replacing all the chips, or hacking their firmware, is different, and is what I’m asking about.
Most bombs that use a phone as the trigger use the speaker for example. But in these pagers that would have already set off loads.
May have been done at the source of the manufacturing.
Not sure that falls under “intercepted”
Not a ton is known, by from what I understand the explosives were part of a secondary board added to the pagers, which would also have the ability to listen for a separate signal or look for a specific one the pager received.
Lmfao this attack is aimed at nailing terrorists. Well lookie there. Lemmy you never let me down
I don’t understand what you’re trying to say. Is it OK for a nation state to plant bombs in suspected opponents and then explode them at random without respect for collateral damage? If Russians did the same to Americans, you’d be all “fair play, mate”?
If there were an anti-Russian militia that set up shop in America and occasionally attacked Russia and Russia figured out a way to target many members of this militia and a few innocent bystanders were also injured or killed, the rest of the world would say “yeah… that is what you get” and Americans would say “Why are we allowing these armed assholes to set up shop in America and attack Russia?”
Lol, if there was an anti-anybody militia that sometimes acted against other states within the US. The US would raid their complex, set it on fire, and shoot people trying to escape.
Then, the government would blame the children and other non-combatants’ deaths on the militia. The public then will watch documentaries made on the subject over dinner.
Pager bombs aimed at extremists are not an American concern. Even if there was a level of non-combatant causilities. If anything, it’s a fun news blip of the week and will be forgotten in less than a month.
Thanks Broseph. I totally agree with your response. I was doing my best to provide a proper analogy to db0’s question: “If Russians did the same to Americans, you’d be all “fair play, mate”?”
If iPhones had explosives planted in them straight out of the factory and would’ve went off in New York all at the same time, injuring thousands and endangering people around them, the 24/7 news cycle would’ve already called for total annihilation and what not.
