Michael Walzer’s book, Just and Unjust Wars, is arguably the most influential modern work on the laws of war. Last week Walzer argued in the New York Times that the attacks on Hezbollah’s handheld devices were “very likely war crimes’ because the targets hadn’t been mobilised, weren’t militarily engaged and were among civilians.  This echoed the views of a group of more than a dozen United Nations legal experts who expressed the “deepest solidarity to the victims of these attacks”. They labelled the exploding pager operation a “terrifying violation” of international law by failing to verify each target and distinguish between civilians and those who could potentially be attacked for taking a direct part in hostilities.

This is UN in Wonderland stuff. Israel’s action was precisely targeted against the leaders of an illegal run force that since 8 October have launched unguided rockets into Israel’s northern towns. The pager and walkie-talkie attacks weren’t directed against Lebanese civilians. They were for a military objective against a military target: to disrupt the organisation’s command and control. The loss or damage to a small number of civilians wasn’t excessive in relation to the military advantage of taking many Hezbollah operatives off the battlefield and destroying its trust in their own communications. There were no more superfluous injuries than would have resulted from other weapons, such as grenades.

Several legal critics argued the communications devices were a booby trap and so prohibited. According to customary international humanitarian law the “use of booby-traps which are in any way attached to or associated with objects or persons entitled to special protection under international humanitarian law or with objects that are likely to attract civilians is prohibited”.  Hezbollah operatives aren’t internationally protected persons. 

In any event, the pager attacks don’t fit the legal definition of a booby trap. In international humanitarian law the term “booby trap” means any “concealed or camouflaged device designed to cause bodily injury when triggered by any action of any unsuspecting person making contact with the device.” But the attacks on the communication devices were a command detonated option on handheld devices that were known to only be in the possession of Hezbollah operatives. 

 Former Labor Defence material minister Mike Kelly served in many operations, including coalition contexts, was involved in targeting processes and is an expert in the laws of armed conflict. Kelly points out that the devices were ordered by Hezbollah “to avoid the tracking and monitoring of its mobile phones and were issued to the most senior of its personnel” and that using this method was as “precise as it is possible to be in neutralising Hezbollah’s key command and control matrix”.     

Penny Wong was asked if the pager and walkie-talkie attacks should be condemned. “Look, I would say all violence is something we don’t wish to see”, she said.  The foreign minister should have added that it’s not a legal or moral breach for a state to precisely sabotage a piece of equipment used by terrorists for military purposes and who’d be in possession of that equipment when detonated. 

The unfair treatment meted out to Israel by our government is compromising the longstanding benefits we’ve drawn in accessing Israeli force protection technology and threat intelligence. This relationship has made our citizens and service personnel safer. In the current state of the world, you really need to know who your friends are. At the right time we should ask the Israelis how they accomplished their latest successful covert sabotage operation. 

Anthony Bergin is a senior fellow at Strategic Analysis Australia and former adjunct reader in law at ANU.