It was a war crime in 2008 when a bomb was disguised as a spare tire in an SUV used to kill the head of Hezbollah’s international operations, whether we agree the target needed to be taken out or not. A drone strike would be “lawful” a car bomb is not.
This essay argues that making a military object appear to be a civilian object—such as disguising a bomb as an SUV’s spare tire—is a permissible ruse of war, not a prohibited act of perfidy, as long as the civilian object in question does not receive special protection under international humanitarian law (IHL). It nevertheless concludes that Mughniyah’s killing was, in fact, perfidious, because outside of an active combat zone a remotely detonated explosive device disguised as a civilian object must be located in the close vicinity of a military objective, which the SUV was not.
Far from an uncontested view, at least insofar as why it was a war crime.