It has been several months since Israel launched an offensive into Gaza in response to brutal terrorist attacks by Hamas. October 7 The Israeli government and military Devastating The level of civilian harm to the Palestinian population.
The current situation is strategic and moral Implications Condemn the US and demand an immediate withdrawal of the attack Military aid To Israel.
As a Special Operations Joint Terminal Attack Controller during the U.S. War on Terrorism, I have led high-value targeting and offensive operations against terrorist organizations in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. The reckless and disgraceful nature of the IDF’s operations in Gaza is a far cry from U.S. standards of targeted attacks and civilian casualty mitigation.
As part of a bipartisan task force analyzing Israel’s Gaza operations, I reviewed thousands of incident reports and tens of thousands of individual data points from dozens of credible organizations and the Israeli military itself.
Our ReportThe report, submitted to the Biden Administration and reported to Congress, establishes compelling and credible evidence that Israel is violating international humanitarian law and U.S. military best practices using U.S.-supplied weapons. The report shows that Israeli forces have “systematically ignored basic principles of international law, including by repeatedly launching attacks despite the expected disproportionate harm to civilians.”
The United States has certainly harmed civilians. But the majority of civilian casualties from recent U.S. offensive operations have been unintentional — that is, the United States did not know or assess the presence of civilians in the target areas before striking. Yet in many of the attacks that have killed civilians in Gaza, Israel authorized the attacks despite prior understanding that large numbers of civilians were at risk.
Moreover, the number of civilian casualties in the United States does not come close to the extremely large numbers of civilians killed in a single strike seen in Israeli military operations, where dozens, and sometimes hundreds, of civilians are often killed in a single strike.
Some, like West Point military historian John Spencer, will look for ways to shift the blame away from Israel to justify the extent of the civilian suffering in Gaza. It claims “Israel has taken more precautions to prevent civilian casualties than any military in history,” he said, adding that Israel is fighting a war unlike any it has ever seen before and one different from those the United States has fought because it is fighting an enemy that has taken root among civilians.
But Spencer is by no means an expert on targeting. Like me, he hasn’t spent his entire career coordinating and controlling offensive operations in the War on Terror. And he clearly wasn’t paying attention when my teammates and I were tracking ISIS in dense urban areas of Iraq and Syria, where ISIS routinely used civilians, often their own wives and children, as human shields. Spencer’s claims are a combination of ignorance and, at the very least, a willful distortion of the facts.
International law state Civilians who remain in combat zones, whether voluntarily or not, must be protected in any case. However, despite warnings and evacuation orders, the IDF has paid no attention to their actual effectiveness. This is a key element of international law, He said: Actionable preventative measures include “effective advance warning of planned attacks.”
Moreover, Palestinian residents were not actually able to evacuate, but were instead shuttled between “safe zones” set up by the IDF, and then bombingSince fighting began in October Three-quarters of Parts of Gaza Strip territory have been designated as various evacuation zones. Seven foreign aid workers were killed in an April 1 attack. World Central Kitchen The attack took place in an area known to be a base for humanitarian operations, even though the group had communicated the convoy’s location to the Israeli military.
Israeli Frequently used High-yield weapons, i.e. Provided by the United States The 2,000-pound bombs also contributed significantly to the increase in civilian deaths. Spencer has warned that the use of such bombs Gulf War And in 2003 Intrusion Israel justifies its use of nuclear weapons by pointing to the Iraq War, but those conflicts were decades ago and did not involve anywhere near the civilian toll seen in Gaza, and 2,000-pound bombs have rarely been used in modern U.S. offensive operations.
Israel touts its increased use of precision-guided, low-explosive weapons as evidence of its efforts to better protect civilians, but the only thing “precise” about Israel’s offensive operations is that it continues to precisely target civilians. For example, on May 26, Israel used U.S.-supplied GBU-39 small diameter bombs to kill 45 civilians and wound 249 in an attack on a refugee camp. Tent Camp The GBU-39 is designed to cause as little collateral damage as possible to the surrounding area, but its intended purpose as a precision weapon with minimal collateral damage is moot when the target area is filled with civilians.
Spencer stateHe claims, contrary to clear and corroborating evidence, that Israel’s civilian-to-combatant ratio in the Gaza Strip is roughly 1:1, calling this “historically low” for urban warfare. He misconstrues the US’s counter-ISIS operations, saying that civilian deaths from US combat operations are much higher. However, Israeli officials have previously Hospitalized The ratio is believed to be at least 2:1. Israeli military statement14,000 Hamas fighters killed or captured Current numbers from the Gaza Ministry of Health More than 38,000 Palestinians have been killed since the fighting began.
But should we still quantify what an “acceptable” level of civilian harm is? Adil Haq, a law professor at Rutgers University and a leading expert on international law, said: He points out, “The fact that an adversary violates international humanitarian law does not change the obligation to protect civilians.”
Israel’s attacks on Palestinian civilians have become increasingly brutal. In early June, Israel carried out a reckless attack. Hostage Rescue The Israeli military launched an offensive in the Nuseirat refugee camp, bombing densely populated areas and leaving nearly 300 dead, with many women and children found in the rubble. Earlier this month, the Israeli military United Nations-run school It is known to be harboring thousands of refugees, leaving dozens dead. On Saturday, Israel carried out strikes in the designated areas. Humanitarian Safe ZoneIn order to eliminate them, 90 people were killed and 300 were wounded. Hamas leadersAnd yesterday, the Israel Defense Forces attacked a UN-run school in the Nuseira refugee camp. And dozens more Civilian.
According to Larry Lewis, former chief analyst for the Department of Defense’s Joint Lessons Learned Board and a noted expert on civilian harm mitigation: The exact number of deaths is not yet known. In Gaza, Israel does not record civilian casualties, and the world can only truly comprehend the full range of missing people and bodies buried under the rubble by immersing itself in the fog of war.
What Hamas did on October 7 was pure evil, but so is what the Israeli military has willfully and repeatedly done to the Palestinian people of the Gaza Strip since then. If I can justify the devastating damage Israel has inflicted on civilians in the name of defending the homeland, then I must justify Hamas’ inhumane acts against Israeli civilians as their only means of dealing with those they perceive as their oppressors. I cannot justify either.
Historically, this scenario has played out and always ended in tragedy. Israel’s horrific operations in Gaza jeopardize its chances of long-term strategic success in the region, undermine the effectiveness and legitimacy of Israel’s operations against Hamas, and discredit the moral leadership of both Israel and the United States.
A reckoning is necessary for both the Israeli and Palestinian peoples. There is no other way to color this conflict and the role of the United States. Either you have an interest in protecting civilians in war and upholding rigorous standards of precision warfare and humane treatment of civilians, or you don’t.
Wes J. Bryant is a former master sergeant in the elite U.S. Air Force Special Warfare Division and a former Special Operations Joint Terminal Attack Controller.Hunting the Caliphate: The dawn of America’s war on ISIS and strike cells.
