this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2024
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Israel carried out its operation against Hezbollah on Tuesday by hiding explosive material within a new batch of Taiwanese-made pagers imported into Lebanon, according to American and other officials briefed on the operation.

The pagers, which Hezbollah had ordered from Gold Apollo in Taiwan, had been tampered with before they reached Lebanon, according to some of the officials. Most were the company’s AP924 model, though three other Gold Apollo models were also included in the shipment.

The explosive material, as little as one to two ounces, was implanted next to the battery in each pager, two of the officials said. A switch was also embedded that could be triggered remotely to detonate the explosives.

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[–] SeaJ@lemm.ee 98 points 1 day ago (2 children)

State sponsored terrorism.

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[–] El_guapazo@lemmy.world 72 points 1 day ago (7 children)

How do we know these were actual terrorists and not just random people that bought a pager?

They've classified infants as Hamas terrorists before so I'm a bit skeptical.

[–] Deceptichum@quokk.au 44 points 1 day ago (3 children)

They literally killed a child in this attack.

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[–] NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io 18 points 1 day ago

I mean the people carrying the pagers were likely with Hezbollah, but the 2750 people injured? Yeah no.

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[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 82 points 1 day ago (2 children)

This makes more sense than them being able to remotely overload a battery to make it explode.

[–] ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.org 29 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Overloaded Li-Ion batteries don't reliably explode. I would have expected them to place the explosive inside an oversized battery pouch along with a heating element in series with the battery. A microcontroller on the board could go short-circuit upon receiving a certain message, making a large current flow through the heating element and triggering the explosive.

[–] Agent641@lemmy.world 15 points 1 day ago

The violence of a Li-ion explosion is loosely correlated to the battery's state of charge, so near flat batteries would just pop and fizzle. That would be a very unpredictable and inefficient strategy.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Yeah, that part really confused me, especially since I found it hard to believe that a battery that small could do any real damage. Maybe blow a hole in the guy's leg, but that wouldn't be enough to take out the guy.

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[–] poo@lemmy.world 64 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Israel is truly disgusting and abhorrent.

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[–] Sundial@lemm.ee 61 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

This is Israel's version of de-escalating an escalating conflict. Disgusting animals.

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[–] Agent641@lemmy.world 17 points 1 day ago (4 children)

I wonder how many pager carriers were on planes at the time?

[–] theyoyomaster@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

Depending on what airports they tried to go through they likely would have been caught. Even garbage security theater like the TSA catches concealed explosives fairly well.

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[–] kent_eh@lemmy.ca 31 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Thar makes a lot more sense than the headlines claiming that the pagers were "hacked" by some remote exploit.

[–] finitebanjo@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Pagers. Can't imagine who the foremost users of pagers would be in 2024.

*cough doctors *cough

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (13 children)

I have not seen a doctor with a pager in a long time and I have spent a ton of time in hospitals over the past year. They all have smartwatches now.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago

I have not seen a doctor with a pager in a long time

My friend's a pulminologist and his hospital still uses pagers. They just never bothered to upgrade their 20 year old system to use SMS. And he says he's partial to it, because he's not forced to check his phone every time it rings when 99% of the messages are spam texts anyway.

[–] IphtashuFitz@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago

Back when cell phones were just starting to get “smart” I knew a few folks that carried both a pager & phone. They lived in rural areas where pager coverage was decent but phone coverage was spotty at best, and non-existent in places.

[–] IndustryStandard@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Is this universal around all of Lebanon or only the hospital you were at? There were reports claiming medical personnel were hit with the pagers.

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[–] Icalasari@fedia.io 17 points 1 day ago (2 children)

What is Israel trying to do, beat Canada's record for war crimes added to the Geneva Convention?

Or are they trying to piss off the Middle East enough to get them all to bomb them all at once so they can demand the US send in troops to protect them, dragging the world ever closer to WWIII because their sociopathic leader wants to genocide a people to get real estate?

[–] MutilationWave@lemmy.world 13 points 1 day ago

He also needs to stay in power to keep himself out of prison. Sound like someone you know?

[–] ShadowRam@fedia.io 15 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Canada's record for war crimes added to the Geneva Convention?

what?

[–] Icalasari@fedia.io 22 points 1 day ago (10 children)

Canada in WWII basically invented a bunch of entirely new warcrimes

There's a reason Nazi Germany was terrified of Canadians and convinced they were demons sent from hell itself

EDIT: Got which world war wrong. Nazi Germany feared Canada because of what Canada did in WWI

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