Does the Middle East device attack violate international law?

GENEVA (AP) — Human rights advocates have called for an independent investigation into deadly explosions of pagers and walkie-talkies in Lebanon and Syria, arguing that the blasts may have violated international law if the devices were designed as decoys.

The explosions that took place widely blamed on Israel was killed at least 37 people and more than 3,000 people were injured, including many members of the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied its involvement.

The United Nations human rights office and some advocacy groups have argued that the attacks were “indiscriminate”, suggesting that it was nearly impossible to know who was holding the devices or where they were when they went off. But some academics argue that the explosions were precisely focused because the devices were distributed to members of Hezbollah.

The International Committee of the Red Cross, which aims to protect civilians and others in conflict and aims to remain neutral, said: “This was a unique operation and it will take time to get all the facts to form a legal opinion.”

The committee declined to comment publicly on whether the operation violated international humanitarian law, which is difficult to enforce and sometimes ignored by countries.

International law has never addressed the targeting of body-worn communication devices. The Geneva Conventions, which provide a rulebook for protecting civilians in conflict, were adopted 75 years ago, long before pagers, cell phones and walkie-talkies were widely used in public. The legal situation is further complicated by the fact that Hezbollah is an armed non-state group operating in Lebanon and is a sovereign member of the UN.

“An independent, comprehensive and transparent investigation must be conducted into the circumstances of these mass explosions and those who ordered and carried out such an attack must be held accountable,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said in a statement.

Were the devices decoys?

The question of how international rules apply to the attack seems to center largely on whether a hidden explosive device embedded in a personal electronic device can be considered a decoy. Israel has been accused of targeted attacks and assassinations in the past, but a major attack using mobile communications devices is almost unheard of.

According to Article 7 of a 1996 adaptation, a booby trap is defined as “any device designed or adapted to kill or injure that operates unexpectedly when a person disturbs or approaches an apparently harmless object.” Convention on Certain Conventional Weaponsadopted by Israel.

The protocol bans “booby traps or other devices in the form of apparently harmless portable objects specifically designed and manufactured to contain explosive material.”

Lama Fakih, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch, said the rules were designed to protect civilians and prevent “the devastating scenes that continue to unfold in Lebanon today.” She also called for an impartial investigation.

The convention also sets rules for the use of landmines, cluster bomb remnants and other explosives. It bans the use of other “hand-deployed munitions” such as improvised explosive devices “designed to kill or injure and operated manually, by remote control or automatically after the passage of time.”

The pagers were used by Hezbollah members, but there was no guarantee that members would be holding them when the devices went off. Most of the casualties were among members of Hezbollah’s extensive civilian operations, which primarily serve Lebanon’s Shiite community.

Laurie Blank, a professor at Emory Law School in Atlanta who specializes in international humanitarian law and the law of armed conflict, said the laws of war do not completely ban the use of booby traps, but do place limitations on them. She said she believed the attack was “probably legal under international law.”

He said booby traps could be used to target enemy forces located in or near a military objective, including communications systems used by Hezbollah fighters.

“However, it is not clear that this is a trap scenario. For example, if the attack is on the pagers themselves, this is not a trap issue,” Blank wrote in an email.

Does the ‘indiscriminate’ nature of the attack make it illegal?

Experts said the pager explosions were an indication of a long-planned and carefully prepared operation, likely carried out by infiltrating the supply chain and planting explosives in the devices before they were delivered to Lebanon.

“There is no world in which blowing up hundreds or even thousands of pagers is not an indiscriminate attack prohibited by international law,” Mai El-Sadany, president of the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, a Washington-based think tank, wrote in X.

“The pager owners were scattered throughout civilian areas, from shopping malls to crowded streets and apartment buildings to hospitals, and were surrounded by women, children and men,” he told The Associated Press. “An attack like this cannot predict which innocent passerby is in its range or which carefree child will pick up the pager when it beeps.”

Geoffrey Nice, the British lawyer who is prosecuting former Yugoslav and Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, said in an interview: “It is quite clear here that this is a war crime. And we must declare it as it is.”

But he highlighted criminal behavior on both sides of the Israel-Hamas conflict, citing rocket attacks by Hamas militants on Israel and the loss of life caused by the Israeli military operation in Gaza, where the Health Ministry said at least 41,000 people had died since the October 7 Hamas offensive in southern Israel that triggered the latest war.

Rules require countries to ‘minimise’ harm

Professor Amos Guiora of the University of Utah SJ Quinney School of Law said the attacks were “justified in the context of self-defense” but acknowledged there were risks of collateral damage to civilians.

“International law doesn’t put a number on what legitimate or illegitimate collateral damage is, it’s just to ‘minimize.’ The tragic reality of collateral damage is that innocent people will be hurt and killed,” he said. “I feel there’s a conscious effort to minimize it – with the understanding that it’s never going to be perfect.”

“This particular attack strikes me as the most accurate strike possible – whoever did it,” said Guiora, who spent 20 years in the Israeli army and advised commanders in Gaza in the 1990s.

Israel has faced intense international criticism for its military intervention in Gaza and most recently in the West Bank since the Hamas attacks on October 7.

In May, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Arrest warrants issued Senior Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leaders behind the attacks, have been sued over their actions in the war.

Israel He ignored an order from the UN’s top court South Africa to halt its military offensive in southern Gaza after accusing Israel of genocide, and Russia to ignore court calls to end its occupation of Ukraine.

Hamas was also investigated. Human Rights Watch published a report in July It was concluded that armed groups led by Hamas committed numerous war crimes in attacks against Israel.

Over the years, Hezbollah has been linked to numerous indiscriminate attacks on civilians in Argentina, Bulgaria and, of course, Israel.

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Chehayeb reported from Beirut. Associated Press writers Danica Kirka and Jill Lawless contributed to this report from London.