September 21,
2024
Lebanese
resistance movement Hezbollah confirmed that senior commander Ibrahim Muhammad
Aqil was among 31 killed during an Israeli airstrike
that leveled two residential buildings in Beirut's southern suburb of Dahiye on
20 September.
“Today, the
great jihadist leader, Hajj Ibrahim Aqil, joined the procession of his
brothers, the great martyr leaders, after a blessed life full of jihad, work,
wounds, sacrifices, risks, challenges, achievements, and victories … Jerusalem
was always in his heart, mind and thoughts day and night,” Hezbollah said in a
statement.
Aqil was
responsible for supervising the leadership of Hezbollah's elite Radwan Force
since the beginning of the Israeli genocide in Gaza and the start of
cross-border operations in the Lebanese south.
Another
commander of the Radwan Force, Ahmad Mahmoud Wehbi, was killed in the strike
along with 14 fighters.
According to the
Lebanese Health Ministry, 31 people were killed, including 3 children and 7
women, and 68 were injured during the Israeli airstrike that hit a densely
populated residential neighborhood in the middle of the day.
The attack came
on the heels of two unprecedented terror attacks
that saw Israeli intelligence agencies set off thousands of communication
devices across the country, killing dozens and injuring thousands.
Speaking at the
UN Security Council on Friday, Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib called the Israeli attack “an
unprecedented method of warfare in its brutality and terror.”
“Israel, through
this terrorist aggression has violated the basic principles of international
humanitarian law," he added.
“International
humanitarian law prohibits the use of booby-trap devices in the form of
apparently harmless portable objects … It is a war crime to commit violence
intended to spread terror among civilians,” UN High Commissioner for Human
Rights, Volker Turk, said during the session.
Israel's Hebrew language public
broadcaster, Kan, reported that the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya satellite news
channel is directly cooperating with the Israeli army. The channel receives
exclusive information in exchange for presenting a positive image of the
Israeli army to its viewers in the Arab world.
Al-Arabiya was founded in March
2003, just as the US war on Iraq began, by the brother-in-law of Saudi Arabia's
King Fahd, with additional investment from Lebanon's Hariri Group and investors
from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and other Gulf countries.
Kan reports that Al-Arabiya's
pro-Israel bias is evident in the headlines and breaking news content broadcast
by the channel.
When Israel assassinated Khalil
al-Maqdah, a commander in the armed wing of the Palestinian faction Fatah, in a
strike on his car in Lebanon on 22 August, Al-Arabiya reported he was the
target of the strike even before those on the ground could identify him. This
is only possible if the Israeli military provided information to the Saudi
channel.
Kan reports further that
Al-Arabiya's cooperation with the Israeli army is also evident in the
expressions that are and are not used when reporting on the war on Gaza, per
instructions from the channel's general manager, Abdul Rahman al-Rashid.
While Al-Arabiya's the coverage of
the war may seem similar to other Arabic outlets, there are important subtle
distinctions in the descriptions used by Al-Arabiya to favor Israel.
While most Arab media outlets use
the word "captive" for the Israelis captured by Hamas on 7 October
during Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, Al-Arabiya instead uses the word
"hostage."
Other Arab news outlets frequently
refer to Israel as "the occupation" or the “Zionist entity” and its
army as the “occupation army” or “Israeli occupation forces.” However,
Al-Arabiya omits this phrase and simply refers to "Israel" or the
"Israeli army."
Other Arabic news outlets use the
title "martyrs" for Palestinian victims of the Israeli army, while
Al-Arabiya uses the term "killed."
Arabic news outlets often use the
term "Palestinian resistance" when referring to Hamas. Al-Arabiya
instead refers to it as the "Hamas movement" or "Hamas
organization."
In Al-Arabiya's coverage, Hamas is
not glorified or presented as an important or powerful movement.
Kan concludes the report by asking
what results the Israeli army's collaboration with Al-Arabiya will have on the
alliances, agreements, and relations of Israel with the Arab world.
In August, the Israeli newspaper
Haaretz also reported on the pro-Israel bias of Al-Arabiya. The paper notes
that the channel gave a platform to Israeli army spokesperson Daniel Hagari to
smear the Lebanese resistance movement, Hezbollah, to its viewers in June.
After a visit to Lebanon by Amos
Hochstein, a senior adviser to US President Joe Biden, Hagari appeared live on
Al-Arabiya.
"I'm here in the north,"
Hagari said, before claiming that Hezbollah was "exploiting the Lebanese
people," whom he said might not know the whole truth about the movement's
ongoing war with Israel.
Haaretz adds that Al-Arabiya also
stood out for its "sympathetic coverage" of Israel's Abraham Accords,
signed with the UAE and Bahrain in 2020. The network even broadcast footage
from the Knesset at the time of their signing.
The Israeli paper quoted Orit
Perlov, a researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) and
a former adviser in the US State Department, who said, "Israel, for its
part, cooperates and conveys messages to the channel."
In July, Qatar-owned The New Arab
reported that Palestinians were angered by the coverage of an Israeli massacre
in Gaza's Al-Mawasi camp due to its bias toward Israel.
Israeli strikes killed at least 90
people in the Al-Mawasi area of Khan Younis, which the army had previously
designated as a "safe zone" for Palestinian civilians.
The New Arab notes that the
"vast majority of those killed are believed to be civilians, with women
and children among the dead. Israeli forces even attacked medical teams
arriving to help save victims of the strikes."
However, news headlines published by
Al-Arabiya about the massacre on its website did not mention the Palestinian
death toll, but instead focused on Israel's claim that the strike targeted the
leader of Hamas' armed wing, Mohammed Deif.
The channel also allegedly only
covered Israel's claims about the attack and initially did not broadcast or
publish Hamas's rebuttals, let alone the testimonies of Palestinians affected
by the attack.
Al-Arabiya showed a similar bias
toward ISIS after the notorious terror group invaded Mosul, Iraq's
second-largest city, in June 2014.
General Manager Abdul Rahman
Al-Rashid instructed the channel to refer to the ISIS terrorists as
"tribal revolutionaries" when reporting on the Mosul invasion. The
channel also falsely claimed that hundreds of thousands of Mosul residents were
fleeing the city in response to bombing by the Iraqi army, rather than in
response to the ISIS capture of the city.
The terror group captured Mosul with
help of weapons, equipment and funding provided by the US, Saudi Arabia, and
the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government.
Both Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya and
Qatari-owned Al-Jazeera partnered with the US State Department to promote
propaganda falsely demonizing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the Syrian
army during the covert US-led war on Damascus starting in 2011.
During an emergency session at the
UN on 20 September, Beirut’s top diplomat said that Israel will not be able to
return its citizens to settlements in the north by carrying out terror attacks
against the people of Lebanon.
The session was called after Israel
killed dozens of people and maimed thousands more when it detonated thousands
of electronic communication devices in Lebanon this week.
Speaking at the Security Council,
Abdallah Bou Habib called the Israeli attack “an unprecedented method of
warfare in its brutality and terror.”
“Israel, through this terrorist
aggression has violated the basic principles of international humanitarian
law," he stated, while adding that Israel is a “rogue state."
Pagers and walkie-talkies carried by
members of the Lebanese resistance movement, Hezbollah, exploded as their user
were shopping in supermarkets, walking on streets and attending funerals on
Tuesday and Wednesday.
Many were permanently maimed, losing
their eyesight or hands to the explosions.
The foreign minister stressed that
Israel will not be able to return its citizens displaced from settlements in
the north using such violence. Israel will only see more settlers displaced by
expanding the conflict with Hezbollah, he added.
The UN’s High Commissioner for Human
Rights, Volker Turk, also condemned Israel’s attack, calling it a war
crime.
“International humanitarian law
prohibits the use of booby-trap devices in the form of apparently harmless
portable objects,” Turk told the Security Council during the emergency session
requested by Algeria.
“It is a war crime to commit
violence intended to spread terror among civilians,” he added, repeating his
call for an “independent, rigorous and transparent” investigation.
“I am appalled by the breadth and
impact of the attacks,” said Turk.
“These attacks represent a new
development in warfare, where communication tools become weapons,” he added.
“This cannot be the new normal.”
In the same emergency session,
Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon said Israel will do “whatever it
takes” to restore security in northern areas.
“If Hezbollah does not retreat from
our border … through diplomatic efforts, Israel will be left with no choice but
to use any means within our rights,” he said.
Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, did not condemn Israel’s attack, saying
only that he was “very concerned about the heightened escalation” in fighting
between Hezbollah and Israel and calling for “maximum restraint” from all
sides.
The UN Security Council session
followed another horrific Israeli terror attack on Lebanon Friday.
Israel warplanes fired four missiles
at two residential buildings in the heart of southern Beirut, killing 31 people
and injuring 68 more, including children.
The strike killed the commander of
Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force, Ibrahim Aqil. The former Radwan commander, Fuad
Shukr, was assassinated by a similar Israeli strike on a building in Beirut in
July.
Mohamad Hasan
Sweidan
SEP 20, 2024
Israel's
coordinated attacks on Lebanon, marked by the near-simultaneous
explosion of thousands of pager and walkie-talkie devices over two days, resulted in the deaths of at least 37
people, including children, and left thousands severely wounded.
This brutal
terrorist attack should serve as a dire warning to the world: a stark reminder
that the occupation state’s criminal actions know no limits, indiscriminately
targeting those who challenge its interests, or those of its western allies.
In the wake of
this aggression, who can guarantee that Israeli exports to other countries
won’t be weaponized in future conflicts? The "pager attack" serves as
yet more evidence that Israel poses a global threat, ushering in a dangerous,
dystopian new era in which civilians are no longer safe, even in their own
homes.
Terrorist act or
war crime?
When analyzing
the pager detonations from a legal standpoint,
it becomes clear that Israel's killing spree in Lebanon this week lies
somewhere between a war crime and an act of terrorism. The legal classification
depends on the current state of affairs between Lebanon and Israel. If Lebanon
is considered to be at war with Israel, the targeting of civilians —
non-combatants — through the bombing of pagers blatantly violates international
laws of warfare, including the Geneva Conventions.
Article 51 of
Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions (1949) strictly prohibits
indiscriminate attacks on civilians, and Article 85 lists attacks on civilians
as grave breaches that amount to war crimes. In this case, we must identify who
qualifies as a "combatant" under international humanitarian law.
A combatant is
defined as someone under military command, wearing a distinguishable uniform
and openly carrying weapons. Without these markers, those targeted in the pager
attack are considered civilians under international law.
Additionally,
the attack violates the principles of distinction and proportionality,
fundamental tenets of international humanitarian law. The principle of
distinction mandates that combatants must be differentiated from civilians — a
rule clearly ignored in Israel’s attacks, evidenced by the deaths of children.
The principle of
proportionality prohibits attacks where the harm to civilians is excessive
compared to the military advantage gained. In this instance, the minimal
military impact pales in comparison to the devastating toll on civilians,
including the psychological and moral damage inflicted. Therefore, Israel's
adoption of a strategy of indiscriminate violence during its recent aggression
against Lebanon is a war crime.
The
Guardian
notes that half a century after the Second World War, a global treaty — to
which Israel is a signatory — came into force, which “prohibited in all
circumstances to use booby-traps or other devices in the form of apparently
harmless portable objects that are specifically designed and constructed to
contain explosive material.”
'Terrorism' by
all definitions
However, if we
consider that Lebanon is not in a formal state of war with Israel, the
aggression falls under a different legal classification: terrorism.
According to the
International Convention for the Suppression of
Terrorist Bombings (1997), Israel’s actions can be categorized as a
"terrorist bombing." The use of civilian devices, like pagers, in
non-military zones with the intent to spread fear aligns with the convention’s
definition of terrorism, which criminalizes the unlawful use of explosives to
target civilians or infrastructure with the intent to intimidate populations or
coerce governments.
The UN General
Assembly Declaration on Measures to Eliminate
International Terrorism (1994) defines terrorism as any act aimed at
causing death or serious bodily harm to civilians for the purpose of
intimidating a population or compelling a government or international
organization to act. Accordingly, the pager bombings were intended to
intimidate the Lebanese and the resistance or force them to make concessions,
which is consistent with the definition of terrorism under customary
international law.
Yesterday,
Belgian Deputy Prime Minister Petra De Sutter condemned the "massive terrorist attack" in Lebanon and Syria, while
Volker Türk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, wrote in a statement that the attack "violates international
human rights law, and, to the extent applicable, international humanitarian
law."
An Israeli own
goal?
Israel’s pager
bombing has also sparked global concerns about the security of international
supply chains. If Israel has indeed begun weaponizing
civilian devices through third parties in other countries, this raises
the terrifying prospect that supply chains once thought to be safe could be
compromised at any time.
In an interview
with India Today TV, a technologist expressed concern that Israel’s actions
could lead to similar risks in other countries, creating the possibility of
booby-trapped electronics infiltrating homes worldwide.
The implications
are profound: Israel’s actions signal a new level of risk to global trade,
where civilian products may be tampered with for political or military
advantage. What was once a matter of state-to-state conflict is now a threat to
individual households.
The pager
aggression is also likely to have an impact on exports of Israel's lauded
technology developments. Obviously, confidence in these industries globally
will decline significantly, with observers already commenting on the likelihood
of Israeli infiltration — backdoors, control features, and spyware — into their
export product lines.
While Tel Aviv
pats itself on the back for what it considers to be a major Israeli tactical
success in Lebanon this week, it perhaps does not yet realize that it has
scored an even greater strategic failure.
In 2023,
high-tech industries accounted for 20 percent of Israel's GDP. The volume of
GDP in the high-tech sector in 2022 amounted to NIS 290 billion — or around $76
billion. In 2023, the high-tech industry accounted for 53 percent of total
exports from Israel. But if the ‘pager attack’ succeeds in eroding global trust
in Israel's tech offerings, this will constitute a major strategic blow to the
occupation state's economy.
We are all at
risk
Gold Apollo, the
Taiwanese manufacturer of the brand involved in the explosive pagers, issued a
statement distancing itself from the controversy. While the pagers bore their
name, Gold Apollo claimed they had no involvement in the actual manufacturing.
The devices in
question, AR-924 pagers, were allegedly produced by Budapest-based
BAC Consulting KFT, a commercial intermediary licensed to use the Gold
Apollo brand. Gold Apollo stressed that BAC was responsible for the design and
manufacture.
Hungarian
government spokesman Zoltán Kovacs also denied
any knowledge of the pagers being manufactured in Hungary, stating that BAC
Consulting KFT had no operating facilities there. In addition, Cristiana
Bársony-Arcidiacono, CEO of BAC Consulting, denied any involvement in the
actual production of pagers. In an interview with NBC
News, she explained, "I don’t make the pagers. I am just the
intermediate. I think you got it wrong."
Despite these
conflicting statements, Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs confirmed that
from early 2022 to August 2024, Gold Apollo exported over 260,000 pagers,
primarily to European and American markets, raising further questions about the
murky supply chain and the role of intermediaries like BAC Consulting.
Needless to say,
if Israel is allowed to continue unchecked, the world could face a future where
no communication device, no electronic gadget, and no technological
infrastructure is truly safe from sabotage.
Counter-resistance
strategy
Israel’s high-risk, escalating strategy against Lebanon appears
to be aimed at forcing Hezbollah to stop supporting Gaza while imposing new
rules that favor Israeli security interests. This tactic, which evolves based
on Hezbollah’s retaliations, threatens to shift the balance of power in the
region. Bombing-by-pager may be only the beginning of a broader plan to use
technological and security infiltrations to disrupt the resistance and strike
fear into its popular support base.
Hezbollah’s
response has been unequivocal: Secretary General Hassan
Nasrallah vowed in his televised speech on Thursday that the
organization would deliver a "tough retribution and just punishment, where
it [Israel] expects it and where it does not."
The Lebanese
resistance chief also added: “We have received messages that the objective
behind this strike is to halt the fighting on the Lebanese front, and threats
that there will be more if we don’t stop,” but concluded with a warning to Tel
Aviv that Hezbollah will not cease in its support for the resistance in Gaza
under any circumstances.
This shift in
the rules of engagement, where civilians are targeted not just on the
battlefield but in their homes, threatens to plunge the world into a new era of
insecurity and uncertainty. Governments and citizens alike must now contend
with the possibility that the next device they purchase could be weaponized
against them, as Israel’s aggression moves beyond traditional warfare into the
realm of global terror.
The resistance's
resolve to fight back has made it clear that the confrontation with Israel will
escalate, and the world must decide how to address a growing threat that
transcends borders and affects every citizen. The future depends on how swiftly
and effectively the civilized world can act to prevent further atrocities, but
to do so, they must first deter Israel - which birthed the weaponization of
consumer tech - by punishing it.
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