| KratosLives said: What annoys me most is the agression and lack of care from the idf/israeli government when it comes to civilians. Biden and others keep saying israel has a right to defend themselves, yeah no shit mr obvious. It's the response and retaliation. When you look at the probablity of an israeli getting killed being so low, with the iron dome covering over 90% of strikes, the housing having protective structural walls and better preparation for attack, and then look at the Palestinians and the amount of civilian deaths, |
These sorts of ignorant posts really grind my gears. No army in the history of the world has taken more care to limit civilian casualties on the other side than Israel. The death toll in Gaza is currently said to be around 200 when there have been at least 5 times that many airstrikes despite Hamas deliberately firing from civilian areas, using human shields, and the fact that that death toll includes dozens of people who were killed by Hamas rockets which landed in Gaza. This means that the vast majority of Israeli strikes killed no one, because the IDF gives up its element of surprise by sending warnings whenever it is about to strike a building where it knows there are civilians.
Military leaders from across the west have stated that the restraint Israel shows is greater than the restraint their own militaries would be expected to show. Richard Kemp, the general who commanded the British forces in Afghanistan, has been very vocal about how his forces did not show as much restraint as Israel.
The High Level Military Group, an organization of former senior military leaders from Germany, the US, Spain, France, Italy, Australia, the UK, India, and Colombia, said this about Israel's last conflict with Hamas: “We can be categorically clear that Israel’s conduct in the 2014 Gaza Conflict met and in some respects exceeded the highest standards we set for our own nations’ militaries. It is our view that Israel fought an exemplary campaign, adequately conceived with appropriately limited objectives, and displaying both a very high level of operational capability as well as a total commitment to the Law of Armed Conflict. It did this under challenging circumstances on a formidably complex urban battlefield. This is not to say that the IDF did not make mistakes, which are inevitable in the context of urban warfare against an enemy such as Hamas, that purposefully hides behind a civilian population.”
“The IDF not only met its obligations under the Law of Armed Conflict, but often exceeded them, both on the battlefield and in the humanitarian relief efforts that accompanied its operation. In many cases where the fighting was concerned, this came at significant tactical cost to the IDF. It fought under restrictive Rules of Engagement and it is obvious that instances existed throughout the conflict where the IDF did not attack lawful military objectives on account of a deliberate policy of restraint. The IDF also used a number of highly innovative tactics over and above the necessities of the precautions required by the Law of Armed Conflict. It further used its formidable intelligence capability in an effort to contain its action as closely as possible to Hamas’s assets and protect the civilian population amid which these were purposely and unlawfully embedded.”
Any statements that Israel is not showing restraint, that it is responding 'disproportionately' or deliberately killing civilians, display at best a complete ignorance of the realities and laws of warfare. By that standard every single army which has ever engaged in a military conflict since the first army was formed is even more guilty of everything the IDF is accused of.
