Weaponizing ordinary devices violates international law, United Nations rights chief says
Weaponizing ordinary devices violates international law, United Nations rights chief says
The United Nations human rights chief says weaponizing ordinary communication devices represents a new development in warfare.
Honestly, the real question to me is how many innocent people were maimed, injured, or killed in this attack. This is incredibly indiscriminate, even though the idea is that only the bad guys are holding the pages or walkie-talkies, but if they're in a cafe they're not the only ones getting hurt. Think of it as attaching an explosive to a thousand Hezbollah people, and then exploding them as they wander through a city. That's the true crime, the potentially disproportionate massacre of innocent civilians.
In one sense this is much worse, and more terrifying than the run-of-the-mill IED's used by militant groups. Having to be suspicious of everything around you would be maddening. It's indiscriminate mass psychological warfare, where the collateral damage goes way beyond the people actually carrying the devices.
Israel:
seen ✓✓
We're talking double secret probation. Super cereal shit man.
Constantly wringing my hands at the lack of adults in leadership. Accountability ends atrocity.
A different analysis from an expert in international law. https://lieber.westpoint.edu/exploding-pagers-law/
Attacking a civilian population of a country you're not at war with is a violation of international law.
And Isreal has done it at least nine times in the last year.
Feels like increasingly that is the new reality for all of us, everything is a potential attack vector, even if it's much less lethal attacks. Data grabs, money grabs, attention grabs. Show me something weaponizable that isn't being exploited as one in one way or another.
Fucking this is not hard.
Either that is illegal, or the Unibomber was just.
Yes. But do pants! That would be fun....
ok sir your shoes go in this bin. We want your pants, underwear and belt in that other one. Those will be returned to you after the flight reaches Michigan.....
Oh. We're sorry sir, your luggage is here, but your pants, belt and underwear were flown to Michoacan. Very common occurrence. You may take this pair of paper pants with our Logo while we wait for several connection flights for your belongings...
Well yeah just add another war crime to the list.
I find this a far more compelling view. Trapping the equipment of enemy paramilitaries seems a very strange hill to die on to paint as a war crime. On the other hand, the haphazard distribution of the pagers and the lack of care taken to minimize civilian casualties absolutely suggests this was a war crime - just not for the reason of trapping communications devices.
Weaponry is a human right.
UN is totally irrelevant. Next.
Yup, and it seems like more and more that it wasn't explosives, but regular pagers tampered with to explode using parts they already contain as to not arouse suspicion.
It will be interesting to see how this impacts the reputation of Western electronics. There's already unverified reports of Middle East markets abandoning western built phones end masse for Chinese ones.
Also wait until this technique gets into other malicious actors hands and we start seeing this attack happen everywhere. I don't think Westerners understand what a Pandora's box they've opened.
