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Hiku said:
This literally puts the terror in terrorism. That's 24/7 all day, every day. |
Indeed. The chance of getting into a terrorist attack is miniscule, yet booby trapping devices is 24/7 terror.
‘Weaponising an object used by civilians is strictly prohibited’
While the pagers and walkie-talkies rigged to explode were used by Hezbollah members, there was no guarantee who was holding the device at the time it detonated.
Many of the casualties were not Hezbollah fighters but members of the group’s extensive civilian operations mainly serving Lebanon’s Shia community. At least two health workers were among those killed on Tuesday.
Doctors, nurses, paramedics, charity workers, teachers and office administrators work for Hezbollah-linked organisations, and an unknown number had pagers.
Mary Ellen O’Connell, a professor of law and international peace studies at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, said booby traps are banned under international law. “Weaponising an object used by civilians is strictly prohibited,” she said.
The UN human rights chief, Volker Turk, called for an independent investigation into the mass explosions, saying, “the fear and terror unleashed is profound”.
In the village of Nabi Sheet in the Bekaa Valley, dozens gathered to mourn nine-year-old Fatima Abdullah, another victim of a pager blast. Her mother – wearing black and donning a yellow Hezbollah scarf – wept alongside other women and children as they gathered around the little girl’s coffin before her burial.
