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https://redstate.com/bonchie/2024/09/17/watch-isra...

In one of the most unbelievable developments of 2024, Israel somehow hacked into the pagers and cell phones of Hezbollah fighters and caused them to explode. News of hundreds of injuries, including dismemberments broke on Tuesday morning. Shortly after, videos of devices blowing up began to circulate.

Batteries don't just explode (they can catch fire but only under certain circumstances like the lithium inside coming into contact with water or water vapor); the Israelis must have somehow interdicted whatever shipment of phones this was and planted something inside to help that process along...

Probably not.

I'm not sure how they did it, but I seriously doubt they put bits of C4 in a shipment of devices. Why not put tracking devices so you can find and selectively eliminate targets? Given the difficulty they have finding Hamas leaders, that would be a coup. Find the leaders and the hidden bases.

That's speculation on my part. They could have done it. I'm just highly skeptical.

It's not just water or water vapor. If you can induce a dendrite (which I wouldn't know how to do), you get a short. That sudden release of energy may as well be an explosion (it technically isn't). Hypothetically, if they did put a charge (e.g. C4), they would probably have put it on the batteries. Damage the batteries, and you release the energy contained within, resulting in a rapid exothermic event.

It will be interesting to learn what happened. Should be easy to determine since there are apparently thousands of device that could be examined.

Modern "smart" devices have a lot of software and sensor circuitry related to managing battery life. I don't understand all the chemistry and phyiscs involved but I imagine that some battery designs with some specific formulations are subject to hazards if discharged in ways beyond certain parameters. The operating system of the phone is programmed to reflect this in its monitoring of running apps, battery drain and operating mode to stay within that battery's known safety ranges. I imagine if you trick the software into thinking a different type of battery is in use or ignore data coming from the sensors for drain, voltage and temperature, you could heat up the phone and trigger a cascading failure.

Samsung phones made between about 2018 and 2021 all exhibit a problem that when left idle for extended periods (like 3 months), attempting to plug them into a charger will swell the battery, crack the case and glass and presumably do more bad things if they remain plugged in. I saw two different S8 phones in my family do that.


WTH

If this is true…

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/17/world/middleeas...

What if one of these pagers was on an airliner?

It is looking more like Israel (Mossad) managed to plant explosives in the devices. Manufacturer pleads ignorance, so not sure how else it could have happened.

As a side note, it is against international law to weaponize devices civilians might use. So you can't put an IED in a teddy bear, for example. I don't expect terrorists to pay any mind to that, but Israel is an actual nation that should be bound by those laws. "Booby traps" in pagers and phones appear to be forbidden. But they appear to have done it anyway.

It was very clever. But you're right: what if one of the devices was on an airliner, or a London city bus? Airliners provide cell service in-flight now.

Israel is managing to turn international opinion against them. The UN just voted against them (specifically their occupation of Palestinian territory). Any good will from the attacks last year appears to have disappeared. Not that most people are sympathetic to Hamas or Hezbollah, just that Israel continues to engage in atrocities and violations of international law.

Israel continues to engage in atrocities and violations of international law.

They're fighting for their lives and trying to gain every advantage over what is turning into a 2-front war.

No one cares what the UN says; they were always going to vote against Israel.

They're fighting for their lives and trying to gain every advantage over what is turning into a 2-front war.

Booby-trapping civilian items goes a bit too far. It was clever, but the possibility for something like one being aboard an airliner should have given them pause. That's why you aren't supposed to weaponize civilian devices. But clearly they don't care.

Also, the situation is not as dire as you portray. They are not "fighting for their lives". Ukraine is, but not Israel. Israel as a state is under no real threat (i.e. nobody in the neighborhood could take them down). Not to minimize the terrorist threat to individual citizens. But there is not -at present- an existential threat to Israel, so they are not "fighting for their lives".

No one cares what the UN says; they were always going to vote against Israel.

Yes. Because Israel is in violation of international law regarding settlements (which is what the vote was about).

Booby-trapping civilian items goes a bit too far.

They're devices used by Hezbollah, which by definition means they're used by and for terrorists. Anything goes in that space.

It was clever, but the possibility for something like one being aboard an airliner should have given them pause.

Possibly. How do you know those devices weren't bugged in other ways? Such as, say, activating GPS receivers to send out meta data on demand? Meta data like...how fast is this device moving?

You then look at a list of numbers moving at 200 knots and don't call those up.

Also, the situation is not as dire as you portray. They are not "fighting for their lives".

If Mexico were lobbing dozens of rockets into Phoenix and Tuscon every day you'd think about it a little differently.

Booby-trapping civilian items goes a bit too far. It was clever, but the possibility for something like one being aboard an airliner should have given them pause. That's why you aren't supposed to weaponize civilian devices.

I've seen arguments on both sides of this one. You're not allowed to booby-trap civilian items; you are allowed to sabotage and booby-trap military items and equipment. There's a good argument that this is not a civilian item, in this context. It's insanely unlikely that a civilian would use a pager, because the only use case for it is to avoid interception that is inherent in other equipment.

Hezbollah is a military force. They're out there buying equipment for their communications network. Given the nature of the organization and the complete inutility of pagers in the modern day, there is a case to be made that the foreseeable use of these devices would only be for communication within the military organization. Like any military action against a military force that's embedded in civilian areas, there's the inevitability of some civilian casualties due to proximity. But there you're into the proportionality analysis - if you booby trap a a rifle or grenade any other piece of inarguably military hardware, you create some risk that it might be in a place where civilians are nearby when it goes off.

There's a good argument that this is not a civilian item, in this context. It's insanely unlikely that a civilian would use a pager, because the only use case for it is to avoid interception that is inherent in other equipment.

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Not exactly. 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.

In this case, some may argue Israel did some SERIOUS homework to exploit this "vector..." They knew their foes were avoiding now-typical cellular communication for fear Israel had ways of compromising those communications. They knew their foes were attempting to limit dependency on cellular because so much of the network in areas involved was destroyed or unreliable or heavily overloaded. They apparently also learned that these foes were purchasing batches of these pagers from the few firms still making them. That's what likely triggered the additional research into the supply chain that allowed Israel to discover these orders were being fulfilled by a separate licensee purchasing rights to make units using the brand name involved. At that point, they researched that licensee, reviewed that company's supply chain (providers to it, middlemen firms that took the completed products and got them into retail channels, etc.) then figured out a way to intercept that chain to insert the explosives.

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. Or maybe stating it another way... No one has the right to take that chance while being protected from blowback when innocents are killed. Israel shouldn't get to keep playing a game of horrific relativism and keep doing barbaric things behind a fig leaf of "it isn't as horrific as the last thing someone did to us."


WTH

The first wave was pagers. If we're sure only Hezbollah members use them, that might be OK. Though I'd still be concerned about it on an aircraft. Yes, in a public market there could be a few people injured. On an aircraft, you could lose the whole thing (including passengers and crew).

Second wave was other devices, including walkies. I have walkies (somewhere). 1poorlady wanted them when we traveled in case we got separated. That was in the days before unlimited international data/talk minutes. Since we travel internationally, we have such a plan and have no need. But that's just us.

I don't think a proportionality analysis applies when you are in contravention of international law. Let's say they booby-trapped a military device. Then, sure. Someone near the perp in a market may get hurt, but you're also not violating international law. And such a military device wouldn't be allowed on a plane, so that wouldn't be an issue.

If they were in an all-out war, like Ukraine, that might change the calculus (and international law??). But they really aren't. At least not yet. Could still happen.

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.

On an aircraft, you could lose the whole thing (including passengers and crew).

Unlikely. There was enough explosives in there to maim a human, but unless it was in the cockpit and killed the pilots it's likely not enough to bring down an airplane, even if it caused a sudden depressurization event.

But they really aren't.

Hamas/Hezbollah have been lobbing rockets into Israel - indiscriminately - for years. After 10/7 the Israelis are done playing around and accepting random rocket fire as a way of life.

Hamas and Hezbollah can stop the fighting right now by...stopping the terror attacks. But they won't, so they're not giving the Israelis any other choice.

I don't think a proportionality analysis applies when you are in contravention of international law. Let's say they booby-trapped a military device. Then, sure. Someone near the perp in a market may get hurt, but you're also not violating international law. And such a military device wouldn't be allowed on a plane, so that wouldn't be an issue.

The question is whether this is a military device or not. Some classes of military devices are also used by civilians (such as rifles, jeeps, etc.) - but the specific objects might only be used by the military. If you're sabotaging a piece of military materiel that isn't going to be used by civilians, that's probably permissible under international law, even if there are civilian versions of that object. The purpose of the law is to prevent the booby-trapping ordinary objects that are likely to be used by civilians, but these pagers and walkies may not fall within that category.

I don't think old-school pagers work on an airborne aircraft.

I've always wondered what would be a bigger joke:

Democrat inner cities OR a Palestinian nation.

We don't know if Hezbollah was the only customer. If so, it was probably permissible in response to a proportional attack (like lobbing rockets at Israel). I would think, anyway. (IANAL) If Hezbollah was not the only customer, that could be a problem.

I used to have to carry a pager. Pretty sure it worked off the cell network. Not sure about these, but modern aircraft often provide cell service in-flight. If these devices could be pinged in-flight, they would have been a hazard. And if a customer was a hospital, that would really be a problem. Did Israel manipulate it such that Hezbollah was the only customer? So far I haven't seen anything one way or the other.

I believe, IIRC, that may old pager would queue messages. So if it was off, or I was someplace shielded, the message alerts would come in whenever a signal was restored. Assuming that is how they triggered it (i.e. a message from a specific number).

Assuming that is how they triggered it (i.e. a message from a specific number).

I have read, although I don’t remember where, that it was a specific string in the message that triggered the explosion. One of the messages seen just before the explosion (by a survivor) was a string of unfamiliar numbers which could have been the trigger.

I've always wondered what would be a bigger joke:

Democrat inner cities OR a Palestinian nation.

I'd go with a Republican Congress.

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