A day after pagers simultaneously exploded across Lebanon and Syria, a second round of bombs — this time embedded in walkie-talkies and solar equipment — detonated on Wednesday in Beirut and throughout Lebanon.
The combined death toll from the attacks rose to at least 37 people, including a 9-year-old girl and an 11-year-old boy, with more than 3,000 wounded. Doctors at a Beirut hospital reported that many among the injured had lost eyes and had to have limbs amputated. Exploding walkie-talkies caused more than 70 fires to erupt in homes and stores across Lebanon, along with more than a dozen cars and motorcycles.
While the Israeli government has yet to claim responsibility for the attack, multiple U.S. officials have said Israel was behind the device explosions.
The seemingly indiscriminate nature of the attacks has drawn the attention and concern of experts in international law who caution that the explosions may rise to the level of war crimes.
“If it is Israel behind this, they’ve got some tough questions to answer, including to the U.S. government, because the U.S. government is providing great military support,” said Brian Finucane, a former State Department legal adviser under Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump. “It really should be in the U.S. government’s interest to ensure that its military partners are complying with the laws of war.”
Finucane said that, were he still advising the State Department, he would urge the U.S. to ask a series of questions: Did Israel take precautions to minimize harms to civilians? Did it anticipate blasts to be large enough to harm civilians? How and when were the devices altered to be detonated?
On the specific topic of exploding pagers and walkie-talkies, he highlighted a law of war that 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.” Both Israel and Lebanon have agreed to the prohibition, Article 7(2) of Amended Protocol II, which was added to international laws of war in 1996.
Finucane noted that the Department of Defense’s Law of War Manual, when referencing the 1996 law, uses the example of communications headsets, which Italian forces during World War II booby-trapped with explosives and electronic detonators after retreat or surrender in order to kill their enemies. Finucane wondered whether modification of pagers or walkie-talkies with explosive material would meet the law’s criteria.
“Israel may have a right to defend itself, but there are legal restrictions on how it does,” said Finucane, who is now a senior advisor with the International Crisis Group. “And from a police perspective, it should be in the interest of the U.S. not to get dragged into further unnecessary wars in the Middle East, and certainly not be fueling those unnecessary wars.”
Hezbollah, a powerful Lebanese Shia group backed by Iran, has been exchanging rocket fire with Israel since October 7, leading to the displacement of tens of thousands in southern Lebanon and Northern Israel. Some estimates hold that more than 600 people have been killed in Lebanon, including more than 130 civilians, over the course of the past year. In Israel, including the annexed Golan Heights, the violence has killed at least 24 soldiers and 26 civilians.
Over the past several months, tensions between the nations continued to rise. Many argue that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is widening the war in the region, beyond Gaza and the West Bank, to strengthen his grip on power in Israel. A regional war could involve Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Yemen, as well as the U.S. The pager and walkie-talkie attacks seem to be evidence of further escalation.
Netanyahu on Wednesday doubled down on his pledge to “return the residents of the north safely to their homes,” without mentioning the recent attacks.
Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant was more direct and said the country is “at the start of a new phase in the war” and that “the center of gravity is shifting to the north” toward Lebanon.
Both Netanyahu and Gallant already face potential arrest warrants from the International Criminal Court on allegations of war crimes committed during Israel’s war in Gaza, including the targeting and starvation of civilians.
“I think detonating pagers in people’s pockets without any knowledge of where those are, in that moment, is a pretty evident indiscriminate attack,” said Jessica Peake, an international law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law. “I think this seems to be quite blatant, both violations of both proportionality and indiscriminate attacks.”
Israel has assassinated its enemies across borders in the past. In August, a bombing in a Tehran, Iran, apartment killed Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. Israel’s airstrikes into Lebanon have also killed Hezbollah militant leaders. In 1996, Israel booby-trapped and detonated a cellphone used by Hamas bomb-maker Yahya Ayyash, killing him instantly inside his Gaza home.
Both Peake and Finucane said the scale of this week’s attacks are unprecedented.
The Israeli military has used algorithms and artificial intelligence systems to direct its airstrikes at the homes of potential Hamas militants on a large scale during its war on Gaza. Those strikes have killed and injured thousands of civilians who were in the vicinity of alleged Hamas militants, and the program has been criticized by IDF officers working in these AI operations for ignoring the laws of war.
But the nature of the explosive electronics attack makes any assessment of targeting or intent even more difficult.
“You certainly see a mass targeting scheme of individuals here,” Finucane said, referring to the pager and walkie-talkie attacks. “Israel, or whoever was launching this attack, didn’t know where these people were going to be located at any given time, so it makes it really tough to assess proportionality or other precautions.”
Finucane urged the U.S. to use its leverage to achieve a ceasefire resolution in its war in Gaza, which he said is the root cause of its conflict in Lebanon and across the region. He said the U.S. should stop its military aid to Israel, which would halt Israel’s military campaigns, pushing it toward resolution.
“I’d say enough is enough,” Finucane said. “Does this administration want to hand off a war between Israel and Hezbollah, involving the U.S, to its successor?” he continued. “Does this administration want to keep fighting the Houthis with no end in sight? Does this administration want to keep fueling the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza If not, there’s an obvious solution: getting a ceasefire in Gaza and calming things down in the region.”