Comment by edanm

Comment by edanm 10 months ago

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> Yes, but these are more akin to bombings and not surgical strikes.

Not sure why you think that? If reports are true, these were relatively small bombings that only impacted people carrying a pager that was specifically handed out to Hezbollah members, and presumably only military members. There was collateral damage, but far less than there would be by even the most surgical of surgical strikes (which usually refers to sending in highly targeted missiles to take out, say, only a single apartment).

Of course we might learn that that isn't accurate, but that's the story as I currently understand it.

nobodyandproud 10 months ago

Because on the face of things, the Lebanese buyers were assumed to be Hezbollah. They sold pagers and handhelds without bombs, but when sold to Lebanese?

We don’t know at this time what percentage of these pagers were sold to and in possession of civilians.

So unlike a single phone, it certainly seems more indiscriminate.

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  • edanm 10 months ago

    Again, according to reporting, these bombs were placed specifically in pagers that were were for Hezbollah member's use. The reporting suggest that it was a shipment of pagers for Hezbollah members.

    Again, if we want to wait a bit more and see more reporting, then update, I'm all for it. But it's been a few days, and Hezbollah has already claimed that most of the people killed by pagers were their members, iirc. We also all know of the horrible and tragic death of one 9-year-old girl.

    I haven't seen any reporting suggesting that there were many civilians harmed. I've certainly heard many people claiming that civilians could've been harmed, but I'd think that if there were many civilian victims, in this day and age of social media and instant communication, we'd have heard about them. I at least haven't.

    Again, totally willing to change my mind. But my prior is to trust Israel to not do some kind of indiscriminate attack. Add to this reporting saying that this was targeted, add to this that several days later there aren't stories of massive civilian casualties - for now, I think it was a targeted attack.

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