All available evidence shows that Israel has followed the laws of war, legal obligations, best practices in civilian harm mitigation and still found a way to reduce civilian casualties.
Russia is using a similar strategy, it’s been in practice since WW2. Destroy everything and move forward into the rubble. Innovation in urban warfare is the type of low collateral precision combat that became a feature of counter insurgency fighting during the “War On Terror”. Also, the statement that “all evidence shows…” is blatantly false.
The author mentions Russia and the US and says they do not go to as great lengths to reduce civilian deaths as Israel does, because of maneuver warfare that relies on surprise:
The predominant Western theory of executing wars, called maneuver warfare, seeks to shatter an enemy morally and physically with surprising, overwhelming force and speed, striking at the political and military centers of gravity so that the enemy is destroyed or surrenders quickly. This was the case in the invasions of Panama in 1989, Afghanistan in 2001, Iraq in 2003 and the failed illegal attempt by Russia to take Ukraine in 2022. In all these cases, no warning or time was given to evacuate cities.
In many ways, Israel has had to abandon this established playbook in order to prevent civilian harm. The IDF has telegraphed almost every move ahead of time so civilians can relocate, nearly always ceding the element of surprise. This has allowed Hamas to reposition its senior leaders (and the Israel hostages) as needed through the dense urban terrain of Gaza and the miles of underground tunnels it’s built.He then goes on to detail the lengths Israel goes to in order to warn civilians and the tactical and strategic consequences to doing so, and suggests the US should study their approach to reduce civilian casualties to historic lows as they have even if it means losing the element of surprise.
It’s an opinion piece by a West Point graduate, soldier, military advisor, and analyst. The title and description for the post were automatically generated by Newsweek and presumably part of his opinion.
Those lies must not be spread.
Not in my watch
What lies? Did you read the article? I’m curious on what grounds you refute it, citations welcome.
Second reply- you won’t get a balanced reply on lemmy. There is a known bias against Israel and a push to promoting one sided articles and arguements from the likes of MEE and democracynow.org. The ignorance is wilful and fixed, to the point Hamas war crimes are justified as “they have no choice”, regardless of the evidence.
Nobody here is justifying Hamas. But Israel is killing children without any justification. To the point that even the U.N. Is concerned.
If you want a tip from a stranger. Reassess your position to think under which circumstance is OK killing kids. And we are not talking about just a pair of accidents (https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/03/1147512)
Agree - no one in this thread is justifying Hamas (its actually a pretty well referenced thread TBH) but these arguements are ones I have noticed over a number of months rather than a specific thread. I don’t have 25 year experience but studied it at bachelor level.
I do find it interesting your comment back jumps straight to number of kids. Please don’t take my step back and assess attitude for indifference - people die in war, especially those in high density urban environments where one side is a terrorist organization and the other attacks places that have lost protection. There is alot of shit wrong with this conflict, but by no means is Israel the only one causing it - you haven’t mentioned anything on how attacks are carried out on civilian structures because Hamas is using human shields either. You will argue civilian deaths are high - I fully agree because that is what happens in asymmetric and unconventional warfare.
So you literally made up a strawman to attack?
Not OP but will bring up the point that while I agree, a number of actions are currently before the courts on proportionality, individual actions and justification of broader actions where evidence is yet to be provided. Thinking blocking of aid convoys where supplies are being taken by Hamas, multiple UN resolutions on justification of conflict but also been attacked, damage on civilian structures which Hamas has illegally garrisoned. With evidence these actions can be justified, but they are still being investigated (as they should).
I unfortunately also fully believe there are a number of Israeli combatants that have absolutely committed war crimes, but also Hamas has committed crimes against humanity. One does not justify the other and I believe people of both sides should be tried accordingly.
Agreed that anyone committing war crimes needs to face justice. The problem is that many seem to be very loose about their definitions of war crimes but only when applied to Israel, which is actually taking extraordinary measures to reduce civilian harm, as this article details.
You’re joking, right?
Did you read the article? Plenty of examples there, with citations.
Israel gave warning, in some cases for weeks, for civilians to evacuate the major urban areas of northern Gaza before it launched its ground campaign in the fall. The IDF reported dropping over 7 million flyers, but it also deployed technologies never used anywhere in the world, as I witness firsthand on a recent trip to Gaza and southern Israel.
Israel has made over 70,000 direct phones calls, sent over 13 million text messages and left over 15 million pre-recorded voicemails to notify civilians that they should leave combat areas, where they should go, and what route they should take. They deployed drones with speakers and dropped giant speakers by parachute that began broadcasting for civilians to leave combat areas once they hit the ground. They announced and conducted daily pauses of all operations to allow any civilians left in combat areas to evacuate.
These measures were effective. Israel was able to evacuate upwards of 85 percent of the urban areas in northern Gaza before the heaviest fighting began. This is actually consistent with my research on urban warfare history that shows that no matter the effort, about 10 percent of populations stay.
As the war raged on, Israel began giving out its military maps to civilians so they could conduct localized evacuations. This, too, has never been done in war. During my recent visit to Khan Yunis, Gaza, and the IDF civilian harm mitigation unit in southern Israel, I observed as the army began using these maps to communicate each day where the IDF would be operating so civilians in other areas would stay out of harm’s way.
I saw that the IDF even tracked the population in real time down to a few-block radius using drone and satellite imagery and cell phone presence and building damage assessments to avoid hitting civilians. The New York Times reported in January that the daily civilian death toll had more than halved in the previous month and was down almost two-thirds from its peak.
I read the opinion piece. The UN 🇺🇳 released a report yesterday called “The Anatomy of A Genocide,” the ICJ’s preliminary findings is that Israel is likely committing genocide. The IDF raped a woman in Al Shifa for two days until she could not speak, in front of her family. American propaganda is stunning.
UN 🇺🇳 released a report yesterday called “The Anatomy of A Genocide,”
A report by Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur, which means she is independent of the UN. She was authorized by HRC item 7 which was not approved by the UN itself, and is controversial. More info here.
Related: “Algeria, where are your Jews?”
the ICJ’s preliminary findings is that Israel is likely committing genocide.
You are miscategorizing their ruling, they said there was enough of a possibility for an investigation, nothing about it being likely. Were that the case they would have ordered a ceasefire.
The IDF raped a woman in Al Shifa for two days until she could not speak
Congratulations, you’ve fallen for Hamas propaganda.
Im sorry, your watch?
What is you education level on LOAC, IR, combined force tactics in urban environments and rules of warfare? Because if its less that 25 years cut the crap and read the article.
Pretty much higher than may think or assume from a stranger in internet.
And I will not move an inch from my previous statement. Basically because nobody will admit this claim for a very reasonable reason. It is a lie.
The number of collateral damage and casualties in this counter terrorist operation (using their wording) is totally out of the scale in any urban conflict in the last 30 years. Mainly because before a city is sieged is usually evacuated. While in this condition the innocents and civilian are trapped with nowhere to go.
Idf has a very long track of using human shields (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/un-report-accuses-israeli-forces-of-using-palestinian-children-as-human-shields-abusing-children-in-custody/), commiting war crimes of every type (https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/un-expert-says-israel-has-committed-genocide-gaza-calls-arms-embargo-2024-03-26/), forging evidences (https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/unrwa-report-says-israel-coerced-some-agency-employees-falsely-admit-hamas-links-2024-03-08/) or even directly lying (https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/12/middleeast/israel-hamas-beheading-claims-intl/index.html), so the credibility of any Israel claim is very thin at the moment.
As you can notice all the links are backed by the very terrorist supporter U.N. And CNN.
And not speaking that the article is AN OPINON ARTICLE of a single person who choose to believe things without using any kind of crosscheck to any other number. So I did the work for you, here is the comparition of the deaths of Gaza VS some other conflicts (https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-01-22/25000-deaths-in-gaza-why-the-destruction-of-this-war-exceeds-that-of-other-major-conflicts.html), if the trend is maintained Gaza will end up with an order of magnitude more civillien deaths than any other conflict.
Those figures are from Hamas, they underly your entire argument and are almost certainly faked. Normal statistical data is noisy, fatalities would go up and down with attacks, and these don’t. It is perfectly linear.
When IDF soldiers exhibit illegal behavior they are generally punished, it is individual soldiers acting on their own, when Hamas commits war crimes over and over again it’s official policy, (calling for genocide, attacking civilians, stealing and preventing aid convoys, hiding in hospitals, dressing as IDF, launching indiscriminate rocket attacks.) Yet, Israel is the one being criticized and being called war criminals. It’s wild to me how obvious the double standard is.
UNRWA and Francesca Albanese, whose biases are obvious by now.
So far it seems like everyone who came here to disagree didn’t bother to read the article. Please read the article before commenting.
Yeah, they wont
