Subject: Re: Feel good story of the day
I think other links in this thread point out that archaic pagers are still commonly used in the medical community because a) spectrum used for pagers is in a different range than signals for cellular service or wifi and has better reach inside hospital buildings (especially basements where radiology labs are typically located), b) the battery life is much better. For staff on call within a hospital who MUST successfully receive a notification for emergencies, pagers still rule.

True. But it seems like an exceptionally low probability that a pager sold to Hezbollah would end up being re-used in a hospital. Pagers are still used in a few fields, but it is insanely unlikely that these pagers would be used by other groups or organizations. These were intended to be used (and were used) as a counterintelligence protocol against efforts to intercept communications, so weren't likely to be casually given away or sold randomly by the people that received it.

Israel might have been VERY confident through that research that the INTENDED purchasers of the intercepted and rigged units were all "bad guys" but there is no way for Israel to have been able to guarantee WHO would be carrying each device or near one or WHERE that device would phyiscally be at the time Israel chose to activate them. These absolutely could have been present within a bus or plane or train resulting in far more innocent lives being killed.

No one has the right to take that chance.

They do, though. When engaging in military operations against an enemy belligerent force, counter-attacking forces are not obligated to guarantee that no civilians will be hurt. That's why if Hezbollah fires rockets into Israel, Israel has the right to fire rockets back at them - even if there's a possibility that the rockets might injure civilians, depending on where the attackers have fired from. They have an obligation of proportionality - the expected civilian casualties have to be proportional to the military objective being pursued.