10-year-old Fatima Jaafar Abdullah was killed in pager explosions in Lebanon.
Israel murders another kid again.
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.
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.
I’m going to shit on them for this too. I don’t need to give them any credit.
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.
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.
This wasn’t an interception. The devices were designed and manufactured by Israeli intelligence. They just licensed out brandnames through shell companies, and convinced Hezbollah to buy models from their agents by conventional spycraft.
Yes, more evidence comes to light.
Replace battery with battery/explosive/receiver combo.
I believe they triggers a cell in the LIPO batteries to overheat causing the explosive material to explode.
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.
Thanks. This is more along the lines of what I’m interested in.
A custom made board for this increases the difficulty and size of this operation by a lot.
Well, they had to make room inside for the high explosive charge, so it was never going to be a slight change to an off-the-shelf product. There’s not typically a lot of dead space in a pager.
I saw some videos about how strong C4 actually is. A single capacitor could in theory hold the payload we have seen. That would also hide it if the device were opened.
Is there data on what the payload actually was?
May have been done at the source of the manufacturing.
Not sure that falls under “intercepted”
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.
If they can plant explosives they can 100% tap into the circuit or maybe reprogram the board. The CIA is known to be able to do this to specific devices by plucking them from the mail. Mossad could likely do their own production run and ship that to Hezbollah.
Yes I want to know more.
No way this is a tergeted attack.
Jew media
Fuck off.
Israel continues doing bad things. Not much of a shock.
this is considerably more targeted at the actual bad guys than their usual MO of bulldozing palastinian neighborhoods though so… an improvement?
There’s no proof of that and I’m not trusting mossad lies.
Still needs to be called out each time it happens.
Frustrating to do another long-form argument of “actually, when you distribute a bunch of explosives and set them off in crowded areas, you’re not fighting terrorism but doing terrorism”
For some reason people struggle to believe flinging hand grenades into a crowd is bad public policy when a US ally does it.
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.
Oh man, the bill to go to war with China would have been ratified in milliseconds.
If those iPhones had only been distributed to right wing terrorist groups, then you have an apt comparison.
Indeed. I’m paging Nasrallah right now that he should update his manifesto
Oh, wait…
I have
asome question(s).Did all pagers in Lebanon just explode or was it only targeted pagers of terrorists that exploded? where they rigged with explosives? how can such a small device in the hands of so few people hurt so many people if they were not rigged with explosives? Was it only terrorist using pagers or is this still a thing i Lebanon?
Only Hezbollah pagers exploded.
The 10 year old girl was Hezbolah?
Whoever gave her the pager likely was.
So that’s justification to kill her?
No, it’s an unfortunate accident.
it wasn’t though.
they deliberately set off an explosive device with no notion as to where that device or who else it was around. This was a deliberate act, and the way their using them, the chaos and “collateral damage” isn’t a bug, it’s a feature.
Pagers are usually carried by the owners, which in this case were Hezbollah combatants. So they knew where they were.
The chaos is intended. Collateral damage has no benefit.
Or maybe she died because she was young and small.
You and all the people upvoting you are fucking insane. Justifying a little girl during like this is peak American coping mechanisms.
What do you think about the 11 Druze children, tha Hezbollah killed?
Is israel saying its a retaliation for that? Would make more sense.
No, Israel never acknowledges clandestine attacks like this.
Hezbollah has been firing rockets at Israel since the war in Gaza started. So yes, of course this is retribution.
Hezbollah decided to switch to using pagers because you can’t track them. Not sure if anyone else (eg. Medical personnel) was also using them.
Allegedly the shipment was intercepted and there was semtex installed
If anyone else did this, it would be universally recognized as a heinous act of state-sponsered terrorism.
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, they intercepted a shipment of pagers purchased to replace their (potentially compromised) mobile phones, which were being distributed exclusively to Hezbollah operatives. That would make it the most precise military strike of all time.
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.
How did something that only killed 10 targets injure thousands, especially when you are considering explosives.
I don’t think I could injure 1000s of civilians with only 10 targets killed with an explosive hidden on their person if I tried.
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.
Now westerners will worry when lining up for concerts or flights and the increased security expenditure will impact their economy
I guess you support ISIS terror attacks as a brilliant play too?
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
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.
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.
That would make every crime a war crime going back thousands of years where they would lay siege on villages until the citizens starved
Yes?
That means the term “war crimes” is meaningless because it would just mean war. The point of specifying some actions as war crimes is to denote things that even in war you shouldn’t do not just say that all wars are crimes
Now you are getting it! War is bad!
What a novel revelation!
Turns out they weren’t.
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.
So which armed conflict in the middle of Beirut are you talking about now?
Maybe the guys shooting rockets at Israel?
Don’t play dumber than you are.
This doesn’t constitute an armed conflict under international law. Israel has absolutely no right to target civilian areas in Beirut using explosive detonation devices with complete disregard to civilian casualties. But I see you’re German, so the psychosis doesn’t surprise me. Israel could probably start raping people (oh nvm that did happen) and you’d probably find an excuse for it.
Israel didn’t target civilian areas in Beirut. They targeted members of Hezbollah, a terrorist militia, that has attacked Israel non stop since October 7th 2023.
Then I guess Hezbollah attacking IDF servicemen wherever they might be, including civilian areas in Tel Aviv, is completely okay. Even if it comes to some civilian casualties.
Both of them are ‘wrong’ and ‘okay’ when they do this. But in some way Hezbollah is ‘more wrong’, because they (re)started it. The only result being a lot of useless casualties with no end in sight.
That would be a comparable attack, yes of course. However Hezbollah doesn’t possess such sophisticated capabilities.
As far as collateral damage and civilian deaths the attack on Hezbollah seems to have been exceptionally good. Making a personal device explode is one of the most targeted ways you can conduct an attack.
But I see you’re German, so the psychosis doesn’t surprise me
So, what exactly do you think would be a proper reaction here?
Hisbollah is de facto a state actor in Lebanon. Lebanon is doing nothing against a group whose declared goal is the destruction of Israel, including shooting unguided rockets into civilian areas.
Now, how would you address that? Unless you have any idea how else to solve this, you’re simply talking out of your ass.
I hardly think it is necessary to be an expert in Near-East conflict or politics in order to condemn what basically amounts to a terrorist attack.
Whether or not they should do something is a different issue all together. But dismissing criticism because they don’t provide an alternate solution to an intricate problem is hardly any more helpful. Israel has many more pathways to do this properly, one idea would be the ICJ.
You’re also falling into an overgeneralization fallacy. While Hezbollah is in the lebanese government, this doesn’t make all citizens of lebanon complicit. Hezbollah doesn’t represent all of Lebanon, neither do Hamas all of Palestine or Netanjahu all of Israel.
Obviously Israel should kindly ask that they turn themselves over a the border so they can have a fair trial
Maybe they should stop their genocide in Palestine. Hesbollah has said on multiple occasions that they’ll stop any hostilities if a permanent ceasefire is implemented.
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.
You wrote a bunch of things that have nothing to do with my comment.
The terrorist organization Hezbollah used dumb pagers exactly because they don’t transmit anything, and therefore are very hard to track.
No, they are not.
As I wrote, you can track which pager got paged when. And you can identify who uses that pager. The pager itself does not need to transmit anything for that.
You obviously don’t know how tracking works.
You obviously don’t know how one-way pagers work.
You can’t easily track a device that doesn’t communicate outwardly.
Please track the location of my ceiling fan, it receives wireless transmissions from a remote and beeps in response. Kind of like a pager.
I don’t need your location.
Pager transmissions contain a sender and a receiver. That’s all the information you need. If a known Hisbollah sender sends to a receiver, that receiver obviously has some ties to Hisbollah.
You can’t track a pager.
A mobile tower will send it a message, but since there’s no two-way communication, theres no way to track where the pager received the message. (Even if it was a two-way one, you need at least three good points of connection to be able to triangulate it.)
So how exactly do you identify who’s using a pager you don’t even know the location of?
You obviously don’t know how tracking works.
Ditto
By tracking who sent what to whom?
If you know the phone number of a Hisbollah member and they send messages to a set of pagers, these are likely Hisbollah pagers. If you do that to several phone numbers, you get a pretty comprehensive list of members. You don’t need to know, where exactly they are. That’s simply not relevant.
And again: if it’s a supply chain attack, you don’t even need these contacts. Just a single entry point into the supply chain of the organization.
YoUrE ArGuMeNt is WeAk
