A September 18 attack against the militant political party Hezbollah has created, for me, a mix of interesting questions about the legality of warfare, the efficacy of attempts to ensure minimum civilian casualties, and the myriad of problems that arise from justifying military actions that, if conducted against non-terror groups, would be seen as a violation of international law.
To give some background: Hezbollah is an Islamist political party operating predominantly in Lebanon. It is recognized by most nations, including the United States and the European Union, as a terrorist organization, responsible for several terror attacks against Israeli citizens across Europe. Like many political groups, however, Hezbollah does not operate exclusively through political violence. The organization also operates schools, hospitals, water treatment facilities, and other social services associated with a legitimate government.
On September 18, 2024, as part of a continued escalation of tensions between Hezbollah and Israel, who have long contested territory in the Middle East, thousands of pagers sold to Hezbollah suddenly exploded in a simultaneous, apparently targeted attack. While no nation has claimed official responsibility, US military sources indicate that Israel was behind the attack.
A small disclaimer
While I’m mostly interested in the moral and legal angles of the attack, it’s important to note that many people, likely including military officials in many countries, are only interested in the goals achieved by this attack. From a purely militaristic perspective, this attack was a rousing success. A simultaneous, nationwide attack on Hezbollah officials would take months of planning to execute under normal circumstances, and this specific attack required an infiltration of manufacturing and distribution of pager devices.
From a purely pragmatic standpoint, the pager attack forces a fundamental shift in military operation for Hezbollah. By detonating pagers throughout the country, the entire communications system of the group is now, functionally, destroyed. Anything that can send or receive a signal could be rigged to explode at any moment, a fact that will undoubtedly sow paranoia throughout Hezbollah. In terms of military effectiveness, this attack was a clear success.
Of course, the world would likely be a much worse place if every action was only viewed from a military perspective, but the intended psychological effect of the attack should be acknowledged.
Legality
In the immediate aftermath of the pager attacks, there was an outcry of concern over whether the attack was a legal act of war. The question, mired in specifics like questions of military legitimacy often are, focuses on Articles 4 and 7 of Amended Protocol II of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, in which the United Nations defines which weapons are, and are not, legally permissible in warfare.
Articles 4 and 7 relate to the use of booby-traps and “civilian objects” in warfare. Article 4 defines a booby-trap as:
any 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.
The definition of a civilian object, unfortunately, is not so clearly defined. Per Article 7:
"Civilian objects" are all objects which are not military objectives as defined in paragraph 6 of this Article
So, in our effort to figure out what a civilian object is, we must first understand what a military objective is, defined in Article 6 as simply:
any object which by its nature, location, purpose or use makes an effective contribution to military action and whose total or partial destruction, capture or neutralization, in the circumstances ruling at the time, offers a definite military advantage.
On a critical reading of this definition, you can hopefully already see some issues with this definition of “military objective.” What, precisely, is considered an “effective” contribution to military action? This would obviously apply to weapons, ammunition, vehicles, and other tools explicitly used to carry out military goals, but what about things that can, but do not necessarily, allow the military to function? What about, to use an extremely relevant example, pagers?
This is where the legality starts to become tricky. The explosive pagers were, to borrow language directly from Article 4, “designed, constructed, or adapted to kill or injure, and functions unexpectedly when a person performs an apparently safe act.” So, by applying only this definition, the attack was clearly a violation of Convention.
But what if we apply a generous reading of Article 6, and argue that the pagers, through their use by Hezbollah soldiers, could “make an effective contribution to military action?” Depending on which Article you emphasize, the pager attack is either a blatant violation of the booby-trapping clause, or a justified attack on a military target. These legal arguments are, at their core, unsolvable without the intervention of a military court - those who support Israel’s actions will always point to Article 6, and those who oppose Israel’s actions will always point to Article 4. This muddy legality creates a roadblock, but allows us to look at another important piece of information that further complicates the issue.
The "Terrorist" Card
An extremely common defense of the pager attacks against Hezbollah is that, as a recognized terror organization, international laws of warfare do not apply to this conflict. There’s a certain logic at the core of this argument; if Hezbollah did not agree to these international rules, is not recognized as a legitimate state, and regularly violates international law through acts of terror, why should they be given equal treatment to other, more legitimate states? The answer, I’d argue, is one of simple morality: if we truly claim to be conducting “legitimate” warfare, then those rules and expectations must be enforced even when fighting a group that does not accept them. A refusal to follow international laws of war against terror groups, which I refer to as “playing the terrorist card,” leads to further complications in our analysis.
Most obviously (or, perhaps, most confusingly) is the fact that “terrorism” is an entirely political term. It is defined, often differently, on a state-by-state basis. In the United States, to give one example, a state actor (that is, a legally recognized government) can never be a terrorist entity. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a branch of the Iranian military, is therefore not considered a terrorist organization by the US, despite effectively being one, and is instead a “state sponsor of terror.” Even the definition of terrorism given by the United States is lacking, as it simply reads:
Terrorism is the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.
Our definition of terrorism is, in simplified terms: the use of violence to achieve a political goal. But this definition immediately raises a question: what acts of violence aren’t terrorism? An extreme example highlights this issue easily; if a home was occupied by a violent neo-nazi gang, and a police force were to raid the home and kill the gang, would this be an act of terrorism? Following the definition, it would seem so. The police had a clear political goal (the removal of a neo-nazi gang) and used violence to achieve that goal. Yet, in practice, you would have a very difficult time finding anyone who views this situation as an act of terror.
Indeed, it is impossible to use our definition of terrorism without creating an immediate conflict with the legitimacy of a government. Any government, by definition, requires force and violence to exist, and the use of that violence, if it is kept relatively moderate, is generally seen as justified. The FBI’s definition of terror reminded me, strangely enough, of the work of Carl von Clausewitz, a Prussian general who focused on state legitimacy through acts of war. Clausewitz viewed war (which, at the time, would have included non-government acts of violence, i.e. terrorism in our modern understanding) not as a failure of politics, but as simply another tool to achieve it. In his book On War, he writes that:
War is not merely a political act but a real political instrument, a continuation of political intercourse, a carrying out of the same by other means.
Essentially, Clausewitz argues that war is simply another means of achieving a policy goal. Owl-eyed readers may note that this view almost perfectly resembles the FBI’s definition of terrorism. This leaves us with a simple paradox: violence conducted by the state (“legitimate” actors) is justified, while the same violence conducted by groups opposed to the state (“illegitimate” actors) is unjustified. To put it in the clearest terms possible: terrorism is not what is done, but rather by whom it is done.
Back to the Pagers
The fundamental problem with Israel’s pager attack is from information that, for dramatic effect, I have not included up to this point. Simply put, the attack was indiscriminate. Israel could reasonably assume that the pagers would initially be used by Hezbollah operatives initially, but had no way of knowing who took possession afterwards or where that pager would be when it detonated. Even if the pagers were only in possession of Hezbollah members (which, to be clear, they were not), not every member of Hezbollah is a soldier. This brings us back to international law (sorry), but I’ll simplify the discussion. If a pager is in possession of a Hezbollah military member, is that soldier an active combatant? If they are not an active combatant, and that pager detonates and kills them, is it still a legally justifiable attack?
The answer is, to avoid several more paragraphs of discussion, “sometimes.”
But even if the pagers were only held by Hezbollah military members, the perpetrators of the pager attack have no way of knowing where the devices were, and whether detonating them would cause harm to civilians. As we’ve seen with our definition of “military objectives,” it can be difficult to even define what a military member is. Is a former member of the Hezbollah military, now retired and at home, a legitimate target? Is a trash collector, working for a social program led by Hezbollah, a legitimate target?
The simplest way to answer these questions is to ask a simpler question: if these attacks were carried out against the United States, what would we deem acceptable? Tim Walz, current Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate, is a former member of the National Guard - is he an acceptable target? What about current members of the Air Force working to repair an air conditioning unit on a Louisiana base? What about an active duty American soldier, in uniform, currently flying on a commercial, international flight? An off-duty member of the Marine Corps sitting at dinner with his family? All four of these people could, under definitions set by international law, be considered legitimate military objectives. But if they, and the civilians they’re likely around, were targeted, it would immediately be considered an act of terror.
The pager attack was an escalation of the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict. While this conflict has been raging for decades to centuries to millennia (depending on who you ask), the current phase began with the October 7 attacks committed by Hamas, where just over 800 Israeli citizens were killed. However, should some of these victims be counted as lawful military targets, rather than civilians? If Hezbollah members who are not soldiers, are unarmed, or otherwise work in non-military capacities are considered legitimate targets, why is an unarmed Israeli reservist considered a civilian target when he is shot by a Hamas soldier? What about an Israeli soldier who is unarmed and out of uniform? If our answer to this difference is “Hamas is a terrorist organization,” then we’re falling back into the trap set by Clausewitz: the crime isn’t in the action, but rather in the person who engages in the action.