The Israeli government did not tamper with the Hezbollah devices that exploded, defense and intelligence officials say. It manufactured them as part of an elaborate ruse.

In Lebanon, as Israel picked off senior Hezbollah commandos with targeted assassinations, their leader came to a conclusion: If Israel was going high-tech, Hezbollah would go low. It was clear, a distressed Hezbollah chief, Hassan Nasrallah, said, that Israel was using cellphone networks to pinpoint the locations of his operatives.

. . .

Israeli intelligence officials saw an opportunity.

Even before Mr. Nasrallah decided to expand pager usage, Israel had put into motion a plan to establish a shell company that would pose as an international pager producer.

By all appearances, B.A.C. Consulting was a Hungary-based company that was under contract to produce the devices on behalf of a Taiwanese company, Gold Apollo. In fact, it was part of an Israeli front, according to three intelligence officers briefed on the operation. They said at least two other shell companies were created as well to mask the real identities of the people creating the pagers: Israeli intelligence officers.

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  • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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    10 days ago

    In Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, in the village of Saraain, one young girl, Fatima Abdullah, had just come home from her first day of fourth grade when she heard her father’s pager begin to beep, her aunt said. She picked up the device to bring it to him and was holding it when it exploded, killing her. Fatima was 9.

    And

    By the end of the day, at least a dozen people were dead and more than 2,700 were wounded, many of them maimed. And the following day, 20 more people were killed and hundreds wounded when walkie-talkies in Lebanon also began mysteriously exploding. Some of the dead and wounded were Hezbollah members, but others were not; four of the dead were children.

    Both are war crimes, and while Israel hasn’t formally declared war. Their defense minister is calling this a war.

    But you can’t use indiscriminate attacks, and you can’t aim for maiming instead of killing.

    Shit like this just makes more terrorists, which at this point is pretty obvious is Israels goal. They do t want to “win a war” they want to create a permanent boogey man so Israels current unpopular leaders get to hold.o to power a little longer.

    Bibi and his people will keep doing this shit, because it’s the only way they keep power.

    They want war and chaos

    • nonailsleft@lemm.ee
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      8 days ago

      They want war and chaos

      What’s your view on Hezbollah launching rockets and mortars over the border?

    • chakan2@lemmy.world
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      9 days ago

      They eliminated 2800 terrorists and only killed 20 civilians. That’s the most successful attack on an entrenched gorilla force in the history of humanity.

      Hezbollah and Hamas love to use civilians, children, and humanitarian aid as shields. Committing war crimes to stop the people committing war crimes is an odd argument.

      This was a much more humane attack than firing RPGs from a hospital for example.

      • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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        9 days ago

        They eliminated 2800 terrorists

        Israel said they’re terrorists…

        They also called American citizens who protest the American government providing arms for a genocide terrorists…

        Would you be ok with them blowing up US college students for using the first amendment?

        • chakan2@lemmy.world
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          9 days ago

          It’s more like can we pick off those 2 or 3 people in that crowd of protesters that are about to do serious harm? If so…yea…do it.

          • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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            9 days ago

            But we don’t know if they did…

            IDF claims it only hit targets, which we know isn’t true, and people standing next to them were blown up too

            I just don’t understand why anyone would just take the IDFs word, they lie constantly

            • wick@lemm.ee
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              9 days ago

              Ideally you don’t take their word, you send journalists and international investigators to the scene to verify.

              What you definitely do not do however is take Hezbollah’s word.

              • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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                9 days ago

                Ideally you don’t take their word, you send journalists and international investigators to the scene to verify.

                Which has happened and they have shown that obviously if someone blows up while walking down the street, the explosion doesn’t magically know not to injure anyone else

                • chakan2@lemmy.world
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                  9 days ago

                  Weird…you’d think you’d have a problem when the other side does it and takes out only non combatants in a crowd.

            • chakan2@lemmy.world
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              9 days ago

              Because I’m up on the last century of terror in that area. It’s just not compatible with western values…at all.

              It’s weird…all weird. Hezbollah wouldn’t think twice of beheading a gay man in the middle of the street, but here on Lemmy they’re like some bastion of freedom and justice.

              This was a surgical strike against a very evil organization. It’s about as humane as it gets when you’re fighting an inhumane enemy.

              • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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                9 days ago

                This was a surgical strike

                If you ignore all the evidence and just reality in general.

                I can do the same and call a lump of lead a gold nugget, but I’m not going to have much luck selling it to anyone in touch with reality.

  • mlg@lemmy.world
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    9 days ago

    You know the more that I think about it, the more I realize that if the CIA or NSA were tasked with eliminating Hezbollah using the same vulnerability, they probably would have set up the same shell company, but install a hardware wire backdoor into every device which would let them do insane espionage or setup widespread jamming or even fake intel, complelty remotely too.

    They already have so many systems that do similar things, it wouldn’t even be that difficult for them to pull off and cause Hezbollah to disintegrate by having them run around falling into easily laid traps.

    But of course this is Israel, so they went with explosives to maximize that sweet civilian collateral like they’re trying to top the bang for buck warcrime leaderboard.

    • helenslunch@feddit.nl
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      9 days ago

      I’m left wondering how they were triggered. Were they all just set on a timer? Or were they able to somehow remotely send a signal? And if they were able to send a signal, were they also able to intercept messages?

      • d00ery@lemmy.world
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        8 days ago

        It’s a device designed to receive signals ;p

        I think for the pagers the consensus is that a particular code would have been sent to the devices.

        • RedAggroBest@lemmy.world
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          8 days ago

          From the sounds of witness reports, it was either 1 message setting off a 5-10 second timer, or it was 2 messages in a similar spacing. It was designed to get someone to look at the pager before it blew up in their face. Apparently doctors have been dealing with it blinding shit tons of people.

        • helenslunch@feddit.nl
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          8 days ago

          It’s a device designed to receive signals

          Yes but only specific signals. That’s the whole point.

            • helenslunch@feddit.nl
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              7 days ago

              I don’t think you understand. The whole point of the network they built was for security. If just anyone can send a message, that would be a huge security vulnerability.

              • d00ery@lemmy.world
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                7 days ago

                I must admit I thought pagers used the gsm (cellular) network, but could only receive messages and therefore couldn’t be triangulated / located like a mobile phone.

                https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pager#Security

                Reading deeper, if it’s radio signals then I can’t imagine Israel would have any problems replicating or spoofing them.

                • helenslunch@feddit.nl
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                  7 days ago

                  Got news for you, pretty much all wireless communication is via radio 😀

                  Yes, it sounds like Hezbollah built their own personal network. Yet another benefit of pagers, it’s far less expensive to communicate when you’re talking about just a few bytes of data.

  • werefreeatlast@lemmy.world
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    8 days ago

    This could only work on pagers sold over there. There’s no need to panic guys! Much larger iPad devices are probably totally different and we should totally trust that no manufacturer would ever make any such thing happen in any other country. And this would also probably not be an issue to worry about in airports since those things don’t actually fly. Right? …ok sir, belt, Shoes in this bin, your completely disassembled laptops parts on these bins, and fake teeth on this Tupperware. Thanks!

  • Iceblade@lemmy.world
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    9 days ago

    Probably amongst the most impressive and precisely targeted strikes against a terror organization in history when taking the scale into consideration. Mossad is one of the most inventive intelligence agencies out there. They do not mess around.

    If it is enough to dissuade Hezbollah escalating to an all out war in Lebanon, the few tragic collaterals pale in comparison to the number of prevented deaths.

    • NeuronautML@lemmy.ml
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      9 days ago

      I’m thinking a terrorist attack of this magnitude with the amount of collateral casualties it had will have international implications that reach far beyond convincing Hezbollah from escalating into a war, if it’s actually going to achieve that at all. We’re talking about a terrorist group, not an army. Personally i think this will probably just delay it and strengthen their resolve to actually go to war and be even more cruel. Terror groups thrive in terror conditions. The strongest military force on the world couldn’t make a dent in terrorist groups operating in the middle east. Peace and stability, however, destroy terror groups.

      I’m pretty sure everyone has realized that further atrocities are not the way out of this war. I just hope the belligerent parties can realize it faster and start coming to terms that they will have to share the land and make concessions. Until then i guess we’ll keep seeing innocents die for motivations that make less sense each time, like Fatima Abdullah, who was just 9.

      • Iceblade@lemmy.world
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        8 days ago

        Peace and stability, however, destroy terror groups.

        Which is precisely why Hamas escalated the Israeli-Palestine conflict last October. They were afraid that Israeli efforts towards fostering peace and cooperation with the other Arab countries were being successful.

        Peace will be impossible to accomplish until the Middle-East at large accepts the existence of Israel, and Hamas have in turn proven that is impossible as long as militant islamist extremists with the primary goal of killing as many Israelis as possible (as opposed to securing safety, prosperity and freedom for Palestinians) rule in either of the two Palestinian territories.

  • Media Bias Fact Checker@lemmy.worldB
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    10 days ago
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    Information for Media Bias/Fact Check:

    MBFC: Least Biased - Credibility: High - Factual Reporting: Very High - United States of America
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    Information for New York Times:

    MBFC: Left-Center - Credibility: High - Factual Reporting: High - United States of America
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    Search topics on Ground.News

    https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/18/world/middleeast/israel-exploding-pagers-hezbollah.html
    https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/new-york-times/

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    • Mrkawfee@lemmy.world
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      10 days ago

      “Least biased” that is a joke. The NYT was literally regurgitating Israeli propaganda about October 7th rapes and constantly gaslights us about the genocide in Gaza, using the passive voice to mask Israeli crimes.