[rougka]

I can sum up my position as this:

1. the original intent of the law was so further away from this scenario that it isn't really applicable in any form. You can see from the first clause that they envisioned a scenario where a soldier is hurt by a booby trapped flag being left in some base. Hence the fact this is part of the mine convention.

2. I am not convinced this actually applies in the legal sense of who signed what and whether these are armed forces at all. Generally intelligence agencies are not bound by international law and regularly do things such as use other armed forces uniforms which is illegal, or simply have non-uniformed paramilitary forces

3. The morale aspect: It is generally accepted among democratic nations that targeted assassinations against terror group members is legal. See US, UK, and a whole bunch of nations that were members of the Afghanistan, Iraq and anti-ISIS coalition.

If Israel had went with that route, each of those 3000 houses bombed would lead to many more dead by the surrounding families, similarly to in Gaza. While in this scenario, most were incapacitated in a non-lethal way (although still horrifying, this is war after all). Making this much better than the alternative

[aspenmayer]

1. I would disagree. These aren't mines, as they aren't triggered by the target. They're similar to the booby trapped tobacco pipes mentioned in one of my links, which were triggered by the trapper.

2. Intelligence agencies don't get POW protections, so that point is not really relevant. Treaties bind you, even if your enemy is not similarly bound.

3. If the targeted assassinations with booby trapped pagers didn't have civilian casualties, I might agree, but in this case, I don't.

I tend to agree with you that the outcome was about as good as could be expected, and likely much better than could be achieved with traditional munitions. However, the escalatory effect of using booby traps, legal usage/legal target or not, is not ideal.

[rougka]

1. Then we will have to disagree, for me it was quite obvious what scenario they had in heart when writing the convention. While the difference here would at least mean a court will need to decide this applies here, as this is not clear cut relevant in any way

2. And so do terrorist organizations. As this does not qualify as an international conflict this does not apply without the annex

3. The civilian casualties are absolutely minimal in proportion to the military usefulness much more than a classic attack.

About the escalatory nature, this is purely my opinion but after 1 year of open conflict that left many refugees, Israel would have to attack eventually.

Also when looking at this entire conflict as an Iran-Israel confrontation, this is merely a natural continuation