Customary international humanitarian law prohibits the use of booby traps – objects that civilians are likely to be attracted to or are associated with normal civilian daily use – precisely to avoid putting civilians at grave risk and produce the devastating scenes that continue to unfold across Lebanon today. The use of an explosive device whose exact location could not be reliably known would be unlawfully indiscriminate, using a means of attack that could not be directed at a specific military target and as a result would strike military targets and civilians without distinction. A prompt and impartial investigation into the attacks should be urgently conducted.HRW clearly employs teams of corrupt international law experts to twist the law in such a way.
Communications devices used by an armed group are valid military targets.
This is not in dispute. This is international law. Israel accepts the definition of a military objective from Article 52(2) Additional Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions, "Insofar as objects are concerned, military objectives are limited to those objects which by their nature, location, purpose or use make 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."
Beyond the clear success of directly attacking the devices, Israel also accomplished the destruction of two entire military communications networks - the pager network and the "walkie talkie" network. Hezbollah is no longer using those networks. This is as clear a military target as one can imagine.
HRW doesn't mention these facts because HRW is not interested in international law - it is only interested in twisting international law as a weapon to attack Israel.
What about their main point that booby traps are themselves prohibited?
HRW's own language proves how absurd their interpretation of the law is. In 2024 in Lebanon, pagers and bulky radio transceivers are not "associated with normal civilian daily use" - almost no civilians use them and none of those used by civilians were targeted.
The actual Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Mines, Booby-Traps and Other Devices paragraph 7(2), when you squint a certain way, makes it appear that booby-trapping pagers is illegal: "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."
But beyond that, the previous paragraph 7(1) of the convention gives a clue as to what the authors intended with this rule. It lists civilian objects that must never be booby-trapped, like human bodies, animals, medical equipment and food. But this one entry in the list makes the intention of the law clear: "kitchen utensils or appliances except in military establishments, military locations or military supply depots."
Innocuous objects that are used for even indirect military purposes, like kitchen utensils, may be booby trapped under this convention.
If that is true, then certainly pagers whose entire purpose is directly for military communications are allowed to be booby-trapped. The only people carrying the pagers are themselves part of Hezbollah.
What about the claim that Hezbollah has non-military members who would be considered civilians and exploding their pagers would be prohibited?
Hezbollah itself emphatically refuses to distinguish between its military and civilian functions. "We don't have a military wing and a political one; we don't have Hezbollah on one hand and the resistance party on the other...Every element of Hezbollah, from commanders to members as well as our various capabilities, are in the service of the resistance, and we have nothing but the resistance as a priority," its Hezbollah Deputy Secretary General Naim Qassem said.
In Hezbollah's own self-definition, every member is considered support personnel for their "resistance," meaning that they are just as much targets as any support personnel for any army would be, such as cooks, drivers, maintenance workers, supply quartermasters and clerks.
Even though Israel haters are scrambling to find reasons to declare the attacks to be illegal, they do not have a leg to stand on.
