Israel’s Pager Attack Was Legal Under International Law

John Spencer, Arsen Ostrovsky, and Mark Goldfeder make the overwhelming case for the legality of Israel’s sabotage of Hezbollah’s pagers and walkie-talkies, right here: “Sorry, AOC: Israel’s Precision Attack Against Hezbollah Was Humane—and Legal | Opinion,” by Arsen Ostrovsky, John Spencer, and Mark Goldfeder, Newsweek, September 20, 2024:

By any stretch of the imagination, Israel is fully entitled under international law, including but not limited to Article 51 of the UN Charter, to exercise its right to self-defense.

Some so-called “experts,” like Ken Roth, former head of Human Rights Watch, and New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have immediately and reflexively rushed to condemn Israel for violating international humanitarian law, including by unlawfully using booby traps. But what does the law actually state?

Generally speaking, under Article 7 of the Amended Protocol II to the 1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, the use of booby traps in communication devices are indeed prohibited in certain situations. There is, of course, an overriding caveat, which is that pursuant to Article 52 of the Additional Protocols to the Geneva Convention I, such acts are permissible in circumstances where the objects in question are no longer used for civilian purposes.

In this case, the pagers and hand-held devices, which were distributed specifically to Hezbollah operatives, were being used for the purposes of communicating, planning and conducting operations. As such, they immediately ceased to be considered “civilian objects” and became legitimate military targets….

The pagers and walkie-talkies were distributed only to Hezbollah operatives, and not even to all of them. They were given only to the higher-ranking echelons, some 4,000 out of Hezbollah’s total manpower of 60,000. They were not to be used by civilians, but only by Hezbollah’s upper ranks for the purposes of “communicating, planning, and conducting operations.” Hezbollah had limited the distribution of the pagers and walkie-talkies to fewer than 10% of its members — those in the upper echelons, responsible for planning and conducting attacks on the Jewish state. The principle of distinction means that the parties to an armed conflict must also at all times distinguish between civilians and combatants. Clearly the IDF knew that all those who had been given the pagers, and the walkie-talkies were military men. It was they alone whom the IDF and Mossad intended to harm.

Putting a stop to the massive daily rocket barrage was a legitimate military objective, to be furthered by killing or wounding large numbers of the enemy combatants. The wounding of more than 4,000 members of Hezbollah will not end those barrages, but should reduce their number. In addition, two children died, apparently because they were standing near the pagers when they went off. They, of course, were not the target, but the collateral damage that occurs in all wars. Given the obvious importance of the military objective, along with the small numbers of civilian dead, the “pager caper” meets the test of proportionality.