IIRC, in the 80s there was a Palestinian terrorist leader hiding in Lebanon so paranoid he would only communicate from public pay-telephones.

Israeli operatives started rigging the public telephone handsets with small bombs and eventually got him. No idea how many local civilians died, of course, and the locals had no certain knowledge of who was booby-trapping their public phones. 

If something equivalent happened in a Western country tomorrow people would blame anything from space aliens to Trump, and only half would believe the official story even if officials figured it out.

Its not like the movies. IRL, anyone likely to agonise over (non-attributable) collateral damage will not rise to a position where they will be making such decisions...