Hamas/Israel conflict: news and discussion

[kebabking]

where these pagers tampered with before they reached their destination?

Could be - middle man buys 10,000 of them so they look like a proper distributor, takes 2000 of them apart and adds the special ingredient, makes sure they get the Hezbollah contract, off the 2000 (or whatever number) go, and they flog the base model 8k to legit businesses in Lebanon etc...

My suspicion is that the Israelis (or whomsoever...) have been playing a longer game, and they'll have been hoovering the Commint from the pager network - who starts a message, who gets it first, who gets it last - and then, possibly when they thought that they were going to get blown, or because it's opportune, they blow the network.

 

[Bingoman]

What do you think?

They could of been on route

 

[taperoo2k]

where these pagers tampered with before they reached their destination?

It was likely done during the production process or before it went for distribution. It's the kind of thing Mossad would do, create a device that
would be widely distributed into a network that they can then access remotely to trigger the explosions. The explosions
would have been timed very precisely for maximum impact. It also sows paranoia about what else
Israel might have tampered with. Israel will also have enough data to know where to attack Hezbollah
where it will hurt them.

One step closer to an all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah. A proxy for a
war between Israel and Iran effectively.

 

[teqniq]

People on Twitter defining this as a war crime/terrorist attack. There is in all probability zero chance of any accountability:

 

[Idris2002]

This is the kind of spectacular you can only pull off once. It's probably not going to blunt Hezbollah's operational capacity either.

 

[Idris2002]

It was likely done during the production process or before it went for distribution. It's the kind of thing Mossad would do, create a device that
would be widely distributed into a network that they can then access remotely to trigger the explosions. The explosions
would have been timed very precisely for maximum impact. It also sows paranoia about what else
Israel might have tampered with. Israel will also have enough data to know where to attack Hezbollah
where it will hurt them.

One step closer to an all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah. A proxy for a
war between Israel and Iran effectively.

We've already seen that the IDF is an Army of Private Pikes - oh look a hostage let's shoot him - and I doubt if the Mossad Masterminds are really mentally acute enough to pull off an op like that.

 

[agricola]

People on Twitter defining this as a war crime/terrorist attack. There is in all probability zero chance of any accountability:

View attachment 443093

I think they'd have much more of a defence to this than to anything in the current South Africa-led case. I mean, these are (according to reports) pagers issued by Hezbollah to persons they've authorised to have them; just that almost certainly makes this a discriminate attack against Hezbollah, irrespective that they couldn't guarantee who was actually holding the device or near the device.

"Indiscriminate" in this hasn't ever really been defined, but it would probably only cover knowingly using indiscriminate / disproportionate means to attack when other means were available; eg: using a 2000lb bomb that flattens a block rather than a precision guided munition to kill one person, or firing artillery shells into a crowded residential area when PGMs are also available and could be used instead. TBF I don't even think "indiscriminate" would cover an attack when unguided weapons (like Hamas / PIJ rockets) are the only weapons at hand.

Now if they'd blown up every pager in Lebanon, that would be indiscriminate.

 

[teqniq]

This is the kind of spectacular you can only pull off once. It's probably not going to blunt Hezbollah's operational capacity either.

There are in excess of 2,000 casualties. Vids on Twitter show people with serious injuries in hospitals that look to be overwhelmed.

 

[Idris2002]

There are in excess of 2,000 casualties. Vids on Twitter show people with serious injuries in hospitals that look to be overwhelmed.

Oh, it's not inconsequential. But do overwhelmed hospitals equal a blunted Hezbollah? I do know that states that resort to gimmicks are clearly running out of options - even if their gimmicks lead to more than 2K of casualties.

 

[skyscraper101]

I wish MI5 would do a similar operation on those scumbags nicking phones on bikes.

 

[hash tag]

Agree and long overdue

View attachment 442229

Email your MP now and demand they stop the UK from transferring arms to Israel

The human rights violations taking place in Gaza are at catastrophic levels. Despite this, the UK still hasn’t suspended all transfers of arms to Israel - there should be no loopholes and no workarounds. It's time to remind our MPs to champion human rights. Email your MP today...

www.amnesty.org.uk

I did that and have received a long email in return. No doubt this is an email my MP has sent out to many people. Not every MP could have sent it without doctoring it as my MP says she lobbied the last PM and the current one calling for an immediate cease fire.

 

[frogwoman]

Does Hezb buy pagers in bulk to distribute to its members then? I wonder what the rationale is for using them - increased security in relation to smartphones etc?

 

[teqniq]

Fucksake:

 

[Wookey]

Oh, it's not inconsequential. But do overwhelmed hospitals equal a blunted Hezbollah? I do know that states that resort to gimmicks are clearly running out of options - even if their gimmicks lead to more than 2K of casualties.

A mass remote control activation of lithium batteries, in the very pockets of thousands of people, triggered remotely by an attacking agent.

It's not running out of ideas. It's a brand new idea. And it is fucking terrifying.

 

[agricola]

Fucksake:

I can only imagine how Trump and Congress till react to Kamala’s America Hospital helping these terrorists.

 

[gentlegreen]

Does Hezb buy pagers in bulk to distribute to its members then? I wonder what the rationale is for using them - increased security in relation to smartphones etc?

I'm not a pager expert but I'm trying to think of what output device would be used to detonate the explosive that is not ordinarily triggered..
Otherwise it would have needed extensive re-engineering.

 

[agricola]

A mass remote control activation of lithium batteries, in the very pockets of thousands of people, triggered remotely by an attacking agent.

It's not running out of ideas. It's a brand new idea. And it is fucking terrifying.

If that is what it is, yes. Explosives within the pagers (or within the battery within the pagers ) is much more likely, I think.

 

[gentlegreen]

A mass remote control activation of lithium batteries, in the very pockets of thousands of people, triggered remotely by an attacking agent.

It's not running out of ideas. It's a brand new idea. And it is fucking terrifying.

Seems unlikely as battery management is likely to always be independant ...

 

[gentlegreen]

It's been a while since I tried shorting a lithium battery - difficult to imagine how an electronic device could short the battery sufficiently without burning out - such a MOSFET would need to be heatsinked

 

[frogwoman]

How did this happen? Was it pagers that have been manufactured recently or did they find a way to activate older ones too?

 

[Rob Ray]

Oh, it's not inconsequential. But do overwhelmed hospitals equal a blunted Hezbollah? I do know that states that resort to gimmicks are clearly running out of options - even if their gimmicks lead to more than 2K of casualties.

It does if the war starts in the next few days - not only have you taken out a bunch of people senior enough to get free comms you've not killed them, which means they're temporarily useless to the war effort and taking up resources.

 

[agricola]

How did this happen? Was it pagers that have been manufactured recently or did they find a way to activate older ones too?

According to reports, they were all the same model and had only recently been issued. Obviously these are very early reports and so could turn out to be rubbish.

 

[agricola]

Oh, it's not inconsequential. But do overwhelmed hospitals equal a blunted Hezbollah? I do know that states that resort to gimmicks are clearly running out of options - even if their gimmicks lead to more than 2K of casualties.

One thing we don’t know is what the pagers were used for.

If it was for some kind of callout or alert system (as 99% of the ones that still remain are everywhere else) then they’ve (Israel) probably made a graded response - as in the attacks are in area Y so the forces in area Y only go to alert bases - more difficult.

 

[teqniq]

How did this happen? Was it pagers that have been manufactured recently or did they find a way to activate older ones too?

Quoting my earlier post which is based on reports from Twitter:

Seeing on Twitter that they are all the same model pagers - Apollo. E2a also that Hezbollah decided that they would issue everyone with pagers as they were concerned that phones could be hacked so they probably bulk bought the pagers and if as seems likely explosives were involved then the supply chain would have been infiltrated.

 

[Wookey]

If that is what it is, yes. Explosives within the pagers (or within the battery within the pagers ) is much more likely, I think.

One security expert just on LBC, dint get his name, said the idea of someone inserting explosive into the pagers wasn't realistic, that would make it a very complex operation, multi-layers of things going wrong. The most likely method is they've worked out how to hack the power to a lithium battery if they know the phone ID, you'd just need the list of pagers and their numbers.

Which will have come from Iran, who supplied them?

Supplied, because mobile phones were already seen as a security risk.

 

[frogwoman]

One security expert just on LBC, dint get his name, said the idea of someone inserting explosive into the pagers wasn't realistic, that would make it a very complex operation, multi-layers of things going wrong. The most likely method is they've worked out how to hack the power to a lithium battery if they know the phone ID, you'd just need the list of pagers and their numbers.

Which will have come from Iran, who supplied them?

Supplied, because mobile phones were already seen as a security risk.

They can hack a battery to get it to explode? Would there not be safety features in the device to stop it doing this? Or is it a similar story to batteries in vapes etc that often just need to be overheated?

 

[agricola]

One security expert just on LBC, dint get his name, said the idea of someone inserting explosive into the pagers wasn't realistic, that would make it a very complex operation, multi-layers of things going wrong. The most likely method is they've worked out how to hack the power to a lithium battery if they know the phone ID, you'd just need the list of pagers and their numbers.

Which will have come from Iran, who supplied them?

Supplied, because mobile phones were already seen as a security risk.

If it’s just put in the pagers then yes, one would have to assume that they would strip a sample of them down before adopting them.

I just don’t see though how you could simultaneously get them to detonate instantly like they, the available footage certainly looks like regular explosions.

 

[maomao]

I'm not an engineer or an electrician but not sure I'm buying the hacked batteris to explode angle. I know they do explode but that tends to be when they're plugged in and overcharged. Surely at any given time about half your batteries are going to be below average level of charging and some are going to be completely flat. Seems unlikely to that you could engineer that without putting something in at the time of manufacture.

 

[Wookey]

They can hack a battery to get it to explode?

That's what this security guy said, he said as crazy as it sounds, it's much more likely than thousands of phones with a few grams of explosive inserted into each.

Obviously, if that's true, it could mean every lithium battery phone is potentially a remotely controllable explosive. In our pockets.

 

[gentlegreen]

I have to confess I have always been careful to know where all my lithium batteries are at all times, but the ones in pagers are going to be teeny - and in all my bodging I've never had one do more than swell up...