Understanding Civilian Casualties In Urban Warfare: The Case Of Israel And Hamas

No military fighting an entrenched enemy in dense urban terrain in an area barely twice the size of Washington D.C. can avoid all civilian casualties. Reports of over 25,000 Palestinians killed, whether civilians or Hamas militants, have dominated headlines. Yet, Israel has taken significant measures to minimize unnecessary civilian harm, surpassing efforts by many nations involved in urban warfare. As someone who has served two tours in Iraq and dedicated over a decade to studying urban warfare, I have observed that the Israeli military has implemented precautionary strategies that even the United States did not utilize during its recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I share these insights not to elevate Israel above others or to undermine the suffering of Gazans but to address prevalent misconceptions surrounding urban warfare. For instance, the concept of precision-guided munitions (PGMs) emerged prominently during the Gulf War when the U.S. deployed 250,000 bombs and missiles in just 43 days. However, only a minuscule portion of these would meet the stringent definition of PGMs, despite widespread beliefs that the conflict exemplified precision warfare.

By contrasting the Gulf War, which did not provoke nearly the same level of international outrage, with Israel's ongoing conflict in Gaza, we see that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have employed various PGMs and innovative tactics to mitigate civilian casualties. These include small diameter bombs (SDBs) and advanced reconnaissance methods such as satellite imagery and phone tracking to gather pre-strike intelligence. Such efforts aim to execute pinpoint strikes that minimize civilian fatalities. Thus, the oversimplified view that militaries must rely predominantly on PGMs to avoid civilian deaths is misleading.