Many international humanitarian law experts are now studying Israel’s series of detonation of thousands of pagers and several walkie-talkies in Lebanon and Syria as a war crime. They said that the remote detonation was prohibited because it was indiscrimintate, disproportionate and caused damage to civilians.

An expert highlighted international law prohibiting the use of “booby-traps or other devices in the form of apparently harmless portable objects which are specifically designed and constructed to contain explosive material.” This is stated in Article 7(2) of the Amended Protocol II, approved in 1996. Pagers and walkie-talkies can be considered as such devices. Israel is a signatory to this protocol.

On September 17 and 18, Israel consecutively detonated pagers (model Rugged Pager AR-924) sold by a Taiwanese company and walkie-talkies or radio transceivers (ICOM IC-V82) sold by a Japanese company. These resulted in the death of at least 32 people, including two minors, and 2,700 wounded, of which 200 are in critical condition. Many of casualties were hit in the face and hands, and some required amputations.

In the first incident, Israel blew up thousands of pagers, mostly in the country’s capital Beirut. The second was the detonation of walkie-talkies during a funeral procession for the four victims of the first blast.

Reports said the devices contained explosives that were detonated through a sent message. The pagers are said to be used by Hezbollah operatives to replace smartphones that Israel can easily break into and use for surveillance. The Hezbollah bought them in April.

The pagers are Taiwan-branded but was manufactured in Hungary by the company BAC Consulting KFT. The Taiwan-based company (Gold Apollo) denied that the battery and explosive used to detonate their devices came from them. Icom said it stopped the manufacturing of detonated walkie-talkies as early as 2014.

The bombings are yet another attack by Israel and the US to expand the war in the Middle East, in which the US has deep interests.