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Israel vows to retaliate after Iran launches unprecedented missile attack
(www.theguardian.com)
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this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2024
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There were literally children who were injured/killed in that attack. That was not a targeted attack.
It was and it wasn't. It was a brilliant move, but Israel also obviously knew there would be innocent bystanders. Overall though, given the amount of damage it did to Hezbollah, I'd say you'd be hard pressed to give Israel a better attack option.
I'm not arguing about its effectiveness. I'm saying it was not a targeted attack and innocents were hurt because of it. Then again we really shouldn't be surprised given Israel's history of war crimes.
It was targeted, but not precise enough to keep innocents safe.
Then it wasn't targeted. Blowing up a bunch of IEDs with no way to verify who they're hurting is not a targeted attack. It's an act of terror on a civilian population.
My understanding is that it was selectively pagers used by Hezbollah that blew up, which is a far cry from the indiscriminate planting of IEDs you're describing. These weren't dispersed at random throughout a civilian population. They were ...targeting Hezbollah members by being planted on them.
Israel had no way of knowing who was holding or beside the pager when they blew them up. Hence, the civilian casualties and why it wasn't actually targeted. I know Israel has a pretty low enemy combatant to civilian kill ratio but just because this was slightly more targeted than their usual selves doesn't mean it was actually targeted.
How many accounts have there been of non-hezbollah folks holding the pager when it blew up?
I carry one for work, and that shit is on me unless I'm sleeping, because the entire point of a pager is it can reach me no matter what, I'd be surprised if that deviated significantly for Hezbollah folks.
At least several children were killed. You're missing the point though. A targeted attack means you want to attack a single individual and know exactly where, how, and when to attack. Israel just pressed a button and blew up a bunch of pagers without actually knowing who they would hurt.
Are you saying that the children were holding the pagers, or are you avoiding my question of how many civilians were holding pagers that went off?
A pager that out of necessity has to be on someone for it to work seems to fit that bill.
Single individual: targeting the person assigned to the pager
Where: right next to the pager
How: explosion
When: perhaps the weakest point, if someone was sleeping then the timing wasn't right.
Again, my initial point is that it was targeted, but not precise enough. Targeted does not mean 0 innocents were hurt.
The where/how/when answers you provided need to be a lot more specific to fit the definition of targeted. A proper example of a targeted attack would be the US assassination of Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Great example to discuss! I'll point out that the r9x used in that strike is considered a precision weapon. Again, targeting and precision are two different things.
It feels like you're conflating the two - do you consider them to be the same?
They're different things but they do complement each other. You can't have a targeted attack without some high level of precision. I'm genuinely struggling to think of an example a "targeted attack" without some kind of precision applied in the attack.
So in this case, I'd suggest that it was a targeted attack, because there's definitely credit due for setting up shell companies to infiltrate the supply chain to modify devices that are very much only for Hezbollah members to use for Hezbollah activities.
However, the actual method of killing wasn't precise enough in the sense that there were too many civilian casualties. I'm talking out of my ass here, but if the payload was instead ye olde polonium poisoning on a needle that you'd get pricked when changing the battery, for example, that'd be a very precise and targeted strike.
I would say the polonium needle example you provided would be an example of a much more precise and targeted attack, yes. I still fail to see how you could define the blowing up a bunch of pagers as targeted. Even if the pagers were meant exclusively for Hezbollah. The only way I could kind of see your argument is if all targets were confirmed to be in military bases or something like that. The fact that these were blown up in civilian areas like homes, schools, stores, etc and that civilians actually died because of it, discredits the "targeted" claim in my opinion.