Could double device attacks on Lebanon flout international law?

The surprise attacks on the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, involving exploding pagers and walkie-talkies, killed at least 37 people and injured nearly 3,500. As of midday Thursday, Hezbollah officially acknowledged 34 of those killed as its militants. The attacks have raised questions about their legality.

Hezbollah and Lebanon have blamed Israel, although Israel has not commented on the incident.

On Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to return tens of thousands of residents evacuated from northern border areas to their homes. He made no mention of the operation that remotely detonated thousands of pagers and handheld radios used by Hezbollah operatives.

What does international law say? 

The United Nations Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons was adopted in 1980 in an attempt to "outlaw weapons that cause unnecessary or unjustified suffering or indiscriminate harm to civilians." 

Signed by 126 parties including Israel and Lebanon, a section called Amended protocol II deals specifically with explosive devices. It reads: "It is prohibited to use booby-traps or other devices in the form of apparently harmless portable objects which are specifically designed and constructed to contain explosive material."

The amendment was made in May 1996 and came into force on December 3, 1998. 

What do legal and political experts think?

Volker Turk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights: "There must be an independent, thorough and transparent investigation as to the circumstances of these mass explosions, and those who ordered and carried out such an attack must be held to account."

Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary-General: "I think it's very important that there is an effective control of civilian objects, not to weaponize civilian objects. That should be a rule that … governments should be able to implement."

Mark Goldfeder, Director, National Jewish Advocacy Center (On X): "No, Israel's attack did not violate international law......1) Communication devices issued by terrorists to terrorists for terrorist purposes do not count as civilian objects.…..2) The devices do not fall under any of the categories prohibited in Article 7, paragraph 1. ….3) Paragraph 2 prohibits using booby traps that are specifically designed and constructed to contain explosive material- not modifying a device, especially if it is a military device."

Sarah Leah Whitson, Director of U.S.-based rights group Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) (On X): "Booby traps - like the pagers Israel loaded with explosives - are prohibited under international law as objects that are associated with normal civilian daily use & produce the devastation we're witnessing in Lebanon."

Sir Geoffrey Nice, British barrister, judge and lead prosecutor at Slobodan Milošević's trial (told Channel 4 News): "They are almost certainly criminal on a number of grounds….These things, which exploded, exploded in an uncertain place at the time they did.….. You cannot calculate what the damage – the collateral damage – to civilians, children, whoever else it might be, is.."

Craig Martin, professor at Washburn University School of Law, U.S. (told Al Jazeera): "If you don't know where each of these explosives are, and who – in fact – is going to be injured, it's hard to see how a very granular assessment of proportionality could have been undertaken, either collectively or in relation to each of these individual attacks."

Professor Eugene Kontorovich, George Mason University, U.S.: "In international law terms, the pager operation is a classic act of sabotage, which is legal under IHL (International Humanitarian Law). Those protesting the attack on Hezbollah cell phones would have been crying over bombs placed on Nazi Germany's train tracks."

Lama Fakih, Middle East and North Africa Director at Human Rights Watch (On X): "International law prohibits the use of booby traps precisely to avoid the devastating scenes that continue to unfold across Lebanon today. A prompt and impartial investigation into the exploding pager attacks should be urgently conducted."

Brian Finucane, senior advisor for International Crisis Group and former legal advisor at U.S. state department (told The New Arab): "The attack "raises questions under amended protocol two of the convention of certain conventional weapons, which regulates booby traps….We're still waiting to get more information about how exactly these pagers were modified, and that might be relevant to this prohibition."

Dr Andreas Krieg, Senior Lecturer at Kings College London (told The New Arab): "Any weapon you choose should adequately distinguish between a combatant and civilian, and the weapon as such was basically unable to adequately distinguish between a combatant and civilian….We should problematize this attack yesterday because if it's normalized, it set the precedent, and if no one in the international community is condemning it, then this might be a sort of attack that we could see being played out time and again."

Air Commodore William H. Boothby, retired  U.S. Deputy Director of Royal Air Force Legal Services (in article for Lieber Institute West Point): "At the time of writing there is no evidence to establish conclusively responsibility for these attacks…The operation might, perhaps, have been undertaken by organs of the Israeli State and could thus be attributable to Israel….."

"Equally, the operation could have been undertaken by individuals or a group acting on the instructions, direction and control of the Israeli State such that the acts might be attributable to Israel on that footing. Alternatively, maybe these are acts of private individuals operating within the pager manufacturing or pager processing facility who are sympathetic to Israel but whose acts are not attributable to it."

Edited by Jim Drury

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