Comment by runarberg

Comment by runarberg 3 days ago

2 replies

One of the casualties was the child of an MP. That is not military. So we know of at least one instance of a non-military member being targeted, and their kid killed.

Israel has consistently lied about the military nature of their targets in Gaza. I see no reason to believe they behave any differently in Lebanon.

Also, even if they were all military—which they probably weren’t—they were still going about their civilian lives far away from the battlefield, as they posed no threat to anybody.

Now that some time has passed we know a little more about the victims. Including a press conference by Lebanon’s Minister of Health Firass Abiad. There have been 12 recorded deaths so far. Of those were 4 medical workers, one 8 year old girl, and one 11 year old boy. The press conference noted that many of those carrying the pagers were civilians. And made special mention of the toll this scale of an attack had on their medical system.

The best interpretation for Israel here is that they conducted a terrorist attack in a civilian against an armed group during their civilian lives, inflicting at least some civilian casualties. But we know how Israel conducts it self in Gaza and elsewhere in Palestine, and we have every reason to expect their intentions were far more nefarious.

tptacek 3 days ago

That wasn't really an answer to my question, right?

  • runarberg 3 days ago

    The answer is no. The nature of the attack does not make it OK even if it turns out that only military personnel had these pagers. It is not OK for Israel to weaponize consumer electronics which are widely used in a civilian area, even if the users at the time are most likely military personnel.

    But this question is irrelevant because this is very unlikely to be the case. The victims seem to be many civilians.