"Under traditional targeting principle... [the] pager attack... passes that basic test with flying colors.... It might be the most precise targeted strike [on] a military force embedded in a civilian population in the history of war.

Says David French, applying the United States's DOD Law of War Manual, in the new episode of the Advisory Opinions podcast, "The Legality of Israel’s Beeper Attack" (audio at transcript at Podscribe)(I've slightly edited the transcript to match the audio).

Under traditional targeting principles, which require necessity, distinction, and proportionality, necessity means: Is there a military need for this? Distinction means: Are you attacking only military targets? And proportional is: Are you using no more force than is necessary to accomplish your legitimate military aim?

This pager attack under that construct passes that basic test with flying colors. Is there a military necessity to take out a large number of commanders and troops of a military force that is firing rockets at you? Yes, 100%. 

Was there distinction here? Yes. The pagers that were manufactured, these were not manufactured for civilian use. They were manufactured for, specifically for Hezbollah use. They're transferred specifically to Hezbollah as part of their military communication system. These were not consumer electronics distributed in the Lebanese population. So yes, there was distinction.

And then was there proportionality, was there no more force than it was used necessary to, to accomplish the military purpose? Yes.... They were very small charges that were quite obviously designed to wound or kill the person who's carrying the pager and be relatively safe. You can only use the term relatively 'cause you're dealing with an explosive.... And.... there were a few civilian casualties, which is horrific, but as a general matter, it might be the most precise targeted strike of any of a military force embedded in a civilian population in the history of war.

So if you couldn't take this on through these traditional criteria, a number of people online and really this got super amplified by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez referred to a provision in the DOD manual that governs mines, booby traps other devices. 

So here here's a provision. It says: "It is prohibited in all circumstances to use booby traps or other devices in the form of apparently harmless portable objects that are specifically designed and constructed to contain explosive material. This prohibition relates to booby traps, manufactured resemble items such as wash watches, personal audio players, cameras, toys, and the like. This prohibition is intended to prevent the production of large quantities, of dangerous objects that can be scattered around and are likely to be attracted to civilians, especially children."

So this is referring to the practice that you say saw for example, the Soviet army famously used in the war in Afghanistan, where it would create children's toys or harm, things that looked completely harmless and the hopes that regular Afghans would pick them up cause an explosion, kill kids, kill civilians. And so the law of war implication here is really obvious, and it would apply for example, if Israel just flooded a bunch of iPhones into a whole bunch of iPhones say into Lebanon, that could have been used by anybody. That's clearly what the intention here for this prohibition is.

Whereas this was very intentionally manufacturing an instrument for specific military use in response to specific Hezbollah concerns about the insecurity of their cellphone network. So this was, these were not just consumer goods spread around. This is not what that prohibition was intended to encompass. And so then if this is not covered by... the intended prohibition here, well, then what covers it? And then you go from there to another provision of the DOD manual that says the use of mines, booby traps, and other devices is subject to the same rules and principles that govern the use of... other weapons to conduct attacks.

So again, this is necessity, distinction, proportion. And so that's the general debate....

The discussion continues. Read (or listen to) the whole thing.