Thousands of pagers exploded across southern Lebanon and Beirut on Sept. 17, reportedly killing nine people, including a child, and injuring thousands. The explosions occurred amidst ongoing hostilities between Lebanese Hezbollah and Israel, the current round of which began on Oct. 8 of last year, when Hezbollah, in a show of solidarity with Hamas, launched an attack against an Israeli military base in Shebaa Farms. Subsequent fighting between Hezbollah and Israel has displaced tens of thousands in southern Lebanon and northern Israel.
Although no party has claimed credit for the action, Hezbollah, which appears to have been the target of the attacks, blamed Israel. U.S. officials speaking on background have asserted that Israel intercepted a shipment of pagers and inserted explosives in them. According to Reuters, “Hezbollah opted to distribute pagers to its members across the group’s various branches – from fighters to medics working in its relief services.” Axios cited a former Israeli official who said Israeli intelligence services had originally planned to use the modified pagers as a “surprise opening blow in an all out war to try to cripple Hezbollah.” Unnamed U.S. officials told Axios that Israel decided to detonate the pagers now due to fears Hezbollah had discovered they had been altered and thus Israel had to “use or lose” the capability.
The attacks raise concerns about civilian harm and whether further escalation in the hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah is likely to ensue. Alongside those concerns, the exploding pagers in Lebanon raise a number of factual and legal questions related to the law of armed conflict, or international humanitarian law (IHL), given that Israel and Hezbollah are engaged in an ongoing armed conflict. (Professor Kevin Jon Heller touched on some related issues in his article examining the 2008 killing of then-head of Hezbollah’s international operations, Imad Mughniyah.)
Factual Questions: Who did what to whom and why?
- Who is responsible for the explosion of these pagers?
- Was this a covert supply chain operation and if so, at what point in the supply chain were the pagers altered? Were there any cyber-enabled aspects to it?
- Who were the expected recipients of the altered pagers?
- Was the distribution of these altered devices targeted (i.e., limited to Hezbollah fighters)? Or were the devices more broadly distributed either within Hezbollah or to civilians in the general public in Lebanon?
- Was it anticipated that civilians, including Hezbollah members who are not fighters, would receive the devices?
- What was the intended target of the attacks—the pagers themselves and by extension Hezbollah’s communications or the individuals carrying the pagers? Or both?
- What were the anticipated effects in terms of blast strength and radius of the exploding pagers? Was it anticipated that they would injure or kill their holders? Others in their vicinity?
- Who specifically was killed or injured as a result of this action?
- Was this action in fact taken prematurely due to concerns the modification of the pagers had been discovered?
Law of War Questions
The following is a non-exhaustive list of questions that arise pertaining to whether the attacks violated the IHL obligations of the attacker.
Distinction:
- If the carriers of the pagers were the intended targets, were the individuals targeted lawful targets, either on the basis of their status as fighters in an organized armed group that is party to a conflict with the attacker, or due to their direct participation in hostilities (DPH) in such an armed conflict?
- Note: There are differing views as to what types of conduct are sufficient to conclude that an individual is directly participating in hostilities or is appropriately deemed to be a fighter in an organized armed group such that they may lawfully be made the object of attack. What standard did the attacker employ in determining DPH or armed group membership status if that was indeed relied upon as a basis for concluding individuals were targetable?
- Did this action constitute an indiscriminate attack, or a series of such attacks? That is attacks: (a) which are not directed at a specific military objective; or (b) which employ a method or means of combat which cannot be directed at a specific military objective?
Proportionality:
- How did the attacking party assess the anticipated concrete and direct military advantage from the attacks?
- How did the attacking party assess whether the expected harm to civilians and civilian objects from this attack would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated?
- How were these assessments affected if Israel did indeed accelerate its timeline for detonating the devices (and the military benefit was not an opening blow in an all out war)?
Precautions:
- What feasible precautions were taken to protect civilians from the effects of these explosions?
Prohibited Use of Certain Weapons:
- Do the pagers constitute “booby-traps” under Amended Protocol II of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (to which both Israel and Lebanon are parties), as a “device or material which is designed, constructed, or adapted to kill or injure, and which functions unexpectedly when a person disturbs or approaches an apparently harmless object or performs an apparently safe act?”
- Did this attack violate Article 7(2) of Amended Protocol II, which prohibits the “use of booby-traps or other devices in the form of harmless portable objects which are specifically designed and constructed to contain explosive material?”
- Note: The U.S. Department of Defense’s Law of War Manual identifies exploding World War II-era communications headsets as an example of such a prohibited booby-trap.
- Would the modification of pagers through the addition of explosive material qualify as “specifically designed and constructed”?
- (The United States submitted an understanding to Amended Protocol II that “the prohibition contained in Article 7(2) of the Amended Mines Protocol does not preclude the expedient adaptation or adaptation in advance of other objects for use as booby-traps or other devices.”)
- Did this attack violate Article 7(3) of Amended Protocol II?
- Article 7(3) prohibits use of “weapons to which this Article applies [booby-traps] in any city, town, village or other area containing a similar concentration of civilians in which combat between ground forces is not taking place or does not appear to be imminent, unless either:
(a) they are placed on or in the close vicinity of a military objective; or
(b) measures are taken to protect civilians from their effects, for example, the posting of warning sentries, the issuing of warnings or the provision of fences.”
- To the extent the pagers were carried by Hezbollah fighters, would that satisfy the exception under Article 7(3)(a)?