I actually consider the pager attack to be legal. There's obviously criticism of it, but I'm fairly sure you're allowed to do this kind of thing by laws of war.
Obviously this creates a huge problem for pretty much everyone though, since we can imagine that our ordinary consumer products from all sorts countries could similarly explode if we ended up at war with the manufacturers.
I don't know if it's "legal" or not and by who's laws, but it certainly seems like terrorism to me (i.e. intentionally creating a state of terror).
I think if Lebanon found a clever way to assassinate the top 45 military commanders in Israel the same people who are defending this wouldn't be calling it a "Legal act of war".
That's very true, when Israel consistently bombed and destroyed almost every hospital in Gaza. The media tried very hard to narrowly frame it this as legitimate.
Unfortunately for people, Israel will further be tightening its grip on the world (and has already) by buying and censoring platforms such as TikTok.
So there goes one of the main ways news was being shared defying the main stream narrative.
These are the facts and you will be labelled for stating them.
> I actually consider the pager attack to be legal.
If it was done to "israelis", I bet you'd be singing a different tune. Imagine if iran or saudi arabia or anyone else did this to "israelis", some whiny people would be calling it terrorism.
It's quite clearly a war crime. You're putting booby trapped devices into supply chains where civilians will foreseeably get them and be injured or killed by them. This includes medical professionals and their families, who were both victims [1].
It's the equivalent of blowing up a commercial plane or bus because there's a military commander on it. Or, you know, levelling a residential apartment building [2].
If anyone else had done this we'd (correctly) be calling it a terrorist attack.
It's not legal, the consensus among human rights organizations and UN experts is that it's a violation of international humanitarian law. But I guess the American urge to see middle eastern people suffer is alive and well.
If this attack had been carried on US soil it would have been grounds enough to justify another pointless war in the Middle East. But since it was committed by Israel unto a random Arabic country most Americans would fail to place on the map, it's "probably legal".
This is obviously terrorism. The methods are the same as terrorists, the intent is the same, the results are the same. 3000 wounded, this is extremely far from the "surgical precision" claimed by the fascist apartheid state of Israel.
One of the most sucessful integelligence operations ever, absolutely brilliant.
And the brilliance in my opinion is that the targeting was not your regular Hizbollah terrorists but only higher ranking members the one who were given the beepers. So basically cutting the head of the snake.
I doubt Palantir had any involvement, just trying to get some credit. The operation to attack the supply chain was started long before Palantir had grown and could offer something.
> Palantir ended up having to rent a second-floor building that housed its Tel Aviv office, to accommodate the intelligence analysts who needed tutorials
Has anyone here tried using their software? It's salesforce-level fucked. They did a great job spewing lofty concepts, with their ontologies and their kinetic layers, but in the end it all ends up being a giant wormy ERP. There might be one good idea in there (articulating the schemas and transformations in separate layers) but overall it's a perfect vibe match for orwellian bureaucracies.
An ERP where instead of investing in building up your in-house domain experts, your pay consulting fees to train another company's staff on the knowledge, then pay to access it.
Crazy how modern companies want to be McFranchise level of capable. What are you adding as a company if you outsource everything that can make your company a differentiator and your company is just plug and play cogs?
I will never understand how people honestly think that there is a such a thing as a central DB. Do you really think that Gov Agencies from all over the world deploy Gotham just connected to the internet without controlling inflow / outflow of data? I would bet money that 99% of critical systems are not even connected to the internet but air-gapped because, believe it or not, people at those agencies are not that stupid.
This reads like an ad for the geriatrics in power. They don't even mention what the hell they contributed but did mention that whatever it was was "AI powered" rofl.
This conversation already has comments on one side flagged to invisibility. If you are going to allow these conversations, but only allow one side, then Hacker News is not about discussion but about what?
All: before commenting here, please verify that you're feeling something different—quite different—from anger and a desire to fight this war. That is not what HN is for, and destroys what it is for.
This site is for curious, thoughtful, respectful, and kind interaction—most of all with those you may disagree with, regardless of how bad they are or you feel they are.
If that's not possible, it's ok not to post. We'd rather have a thread with no comments than a thread with aggressive comments, let alone nationalistic or religious flamewar. There is far too much aggression in the thread below, which is is understandable, but please don't add more. It provides a fleeting sensation of relief, but then it just makes everything worse.
So, what exactly did Palantir provide? I'm staying out of commenting whether or not this was legal/justified and asking strictly what service this was that was sold.
Is this like, live location information provided from social media/carriers/etc? Is it AI guessing who might be a target based on collected data?
EDIT: I ask because this sort of claim could just be marketing on Panantir's end and the quotes and this post never actually explained what it was other than saying their software was used.
I’ve said this before and cannot be said enough. Palantir is a data platform. I think they optimize for knowledge graphs (ontology). It has several uses. It’s seems to be fashionable to blame Palantir these days. But then wouldn’t you also blame other things - Java and database open source, Python, Linux foundation, etc. for all this.
I think people just want to blame without analyzing what else could be blamed to. Really it’s most of the free software community too.
Disclaimer: I don’t consider what Israel did unlawful. They were under attack by hezb and Hamas. They were within rights to retaliate. And no, hezb and Hamas don’t care about civilian casualties.
Why is it inappropriate to be outraged that international humanitarian laws are actively being violated by Israel, in Gaza? Can someone help me understand?
71 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 74.2 ms ] threadObviously this creates a huge problem for pretty much everyone though, since we can imagine that our ordinary consumer products from all sorts countries could similarly explode if we ended up at war with the manufacturers.
I think if Lebanon found a clever way to assassinate the top 45 military commanders in Israel the same people who are defending this wouldn't be calling it a "Legal act of war".
Unfortunately for people, Israel will further be tightening its grip on the world (and has already) by buying and censoring platforms such as TikTok.
So there goes one of the main ways news was being shared defying the main stream narrative.
These are the facts and you will be labelled for stating them.
If it was done to "israelis", I bet you'd be singing a different tune. Imagine if iran or saudi arabia or anyone else did this to "israelis", some whiny people would be calling it terrorism.
I don't want to be part of their collateral damage.
It's the equivalent of blowing up a commercial plane or bus because there's a military commander on it. Or, you know, levelling a residential apartment building [2].
If anyone else had done this we'd (correctly) be calling it a terrorist attack.
[1]: https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2025/9/17/lebanons-terrib...
[2] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/israel-says-it-struck-hez...
This is obviously terrorism. The methods are the same as terrorists, the intent is the same, the results are the same. 3000 wounded, this is extremely far from the "surgical precision" claimed by the fascist apartheid state of Israel.
Such attacks are nothing but war crimes. Targeting civilians and harming/killing them without trial is illegal NO MATTER OF WHAT.
All kinds of retaliation attacks are also illegal if harming civilians etc.
This is not my opinion but global consensus for the past 80 years globally
I doubt Palantir had any involvement, just trying to get some credit. The operation to attack the supply chain was started long before Palantir had grown and could offer something.
Has anyone here tried using their software? It's salesforce-level fucked. They did a great job spewing lofty concepts, with their ontologies and their kinetic layers, but in the end it all ends up being a giant wormy ERP. There might be one good idea in there (articulating the schemas and transformations in separate layers) but overall it's a perfect vibe match for orwellian bureaucracies.
Crazy how modern companies want to be McFranchise level of capable. What are you adding as a company if you outsource everything that can make your company a differentiator and your company is just plug and play cogs?
Also did they really call it Operation Grim Beeper? Hilarious if true (but I suspect not given how codenames are meant to work).
This site is for curious, thoughtful, respectful, and kind interaction—most of all with those you may disagree with, regardless of how bad they are or you feel they are.
If that's not possible, it's ok not to post. We'd rather have a thread with no comments than a thread with aggressive comments, let alone nationalistic or religious flamewar. There is far too much aggression in the thread below, which is is understandable, but please don't add more. It provides a fleeting sensation of relief, but then it just makes everything worse.
Note this, from https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html: "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."
Is this like, live location information provided from social media/carriers/etc? Is it AI guessing who might be a target based on collected data?
EDIT: I ask because this sort of claim could just be marketing on Panantir's end and the quotes and this post never actually explained what it was other than saying their software was used.
I think people just want to blame without analyzing what else could be blamed to. Really it’s most of the free software community too.
Disclaimer: I don’t consider what Israel did unlawful. They were under attack by hezb and Hamas. They were within rights to retaliate. And no, hezb and Hamas don’t care about civilian casualties.
Um, why is it inappropriate to be outraged that international humanitarian lwas are actively being violated by Israel, in Gaza?
That’s apparently the good look