An invisible detonator and wafer-thin plastic explosives turned batteries into bombs

BEIRUT, Oct 16 (Reuters) - The batteries inside the weaponised pagers that arrived in Lebanon at the start of the year, part of an Israeli plot to decimate Hezbollah, had powerfully deceptive features and an Achilles’ heel.

The agents who built the pagers designed a battery that concealed a small but potent charge of plastic explosive and a novel detonator that was invisible to X-ray, according to a Lebanese source with first-hand knowledge of the pagers, and teardown photos of the battery pack seen by Reuters.

To overcome the weakness - the absence of a plausible backstory for the bulky new product - they created fake online stores, pages and posts that could deceive Hezbollah due diligence, a Reuters review of web archives shows.

The stealthy design of the pager bomb and the battery’s carefully constructed cover story, both described here for the first time, shed light on the execution of a years-long operation which has struck unprecedented blows against Israel’s Iran-backed Lebanese foe and pushed the Middle East closer to a regional war.

  • @[email protected]English
    3•8 hours ago

    I don’t know if this can considered terrorism, the same way I don’t consider car bombs driven into coalition FOBs in Iraq or Afghanistan, or roadside IEDs and VBIDs that killed soldier on patrol, as terrorism.

    If you’re targeting military personnel, it’s not terrorism. But, if you’re doing it in a way that unnecessarily causes collateral damage, too much collateral damage, etc., that’s a war crime. Which I believe this was.

    I can understand the argument that considers this terrorism, and I’m not putting down this flag saying that my understanding of it is right and yours is wrong. Just explaining my current view of the situation.

    But at this point, I’m not sure it makes any difference. Israeli troops, and settlers, are regularly committing unquestionable acts of terrorism and war crimes on a daily basis, so what difference does it make classifying this one incident as terrorism, or just another war crime.

    • @[email protected]English
      2•4 hours ago

      Totally with you. Edit (until the end, then I have a different conclusion about semantics) They attempted a military strike, on militants. There was a ton of collateral damage, and the method inherently put non combatants at risk. That’s war crime, and that’s already bad enough. The semantics matter and I personally believe “war crime and wonton disregard for collateral damage” is the most effective description.

      The 9/11 hijackers did something different, they explicitly tried to hunt civilians.

      To be clear, I’m not condoning or defending Israel’s actions one bit.

      • @[email protected]English
        2•4 hours ago

        You might have missed my point at the end, but I’m not sure at this point if semantics do matter.

        If this was a singular event, or one of several events, they obviously would.

        But after a year of daily war crimes and terrorism by the IDF, I genuinely don’t know if it actually matters whether or not this one event should be categorized as terrorism, or just a war crime.

        Agree with everything else you said, but I wanted to lead with that part first since I crammed in at the bottom of my last comment.

        • @[email protected]English
          2•4 hours ago

          I diverged from you, I’ll edit to be clear.

          I think semantics matter because we hope to compel nation states to act. Phrases like war crimes or terrorism have very different meanings on the global stage, and it’s important that “casual” discussion reflect the proper terminology used.

          Israel is certainly inspiring quite a bit of “terror” with what they are doing, but they aren’t being “terrorists” in the legelese sense. They believe they are conducting security and wartime operations, and much of the global community sees it that way too. What they are increasingly accused of (and obviously guilty of) is massive collateral damage both quantitatively (the number of people hurt) and qualitatively (the way in which they are hurt). If Israel claims to be hunting militants in an ongoing military engagement, then what they are doing is a war crime.

          Edit I’d also highlight that “just a warcrime” is not some slap on the wrist accusation.