Background
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled on January 26 that Israel needs take measures to prevent genocide in Gaza. Is Israel committing genocide? A rational, fact based discussion on this brutal topic must stay faithful to definitions. Sadly, our modern discourse expanded the definition of genocide to the point of meaninglessness. The UN notes that
The popular understanding of what constitutes genocide tends to be broader than the content of the norm under international law
Lets start at the basics, Article II of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide defines genocide as
acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group
Genocide festers in Hamas’s foundation. Their original 1988 Charter calls for the genocide of Jews across the world, while their “moderate“ 2017 Charter only calls for the genocide of Jews in Israel. This explains Hamas’s vow to commit October 7th style genocides until the destruction of Israel. In stark contrast, Israel contains no genocidal foundational document, issues codes of ethics to every Israeli soldier, and uses civilian harm mitigation measures similar to the US.
Despite Israel’s superior morality, commentators continue to besiege Israel with accusations. I will examine criticism hurled at Israel’s wartime conduct using the four main Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC) principles (military necessity, humanity, proportionality, and distinction) then conduct an analysis of the civilian death counts, showcasing the results of Israel’s faithfulness to LOAC.
Military Necessity, Humanity, and Proportionality
Military Necessity justifies certain actions necessary to defeat the enemy as quickly and efficiently as possible.
In this conflict Israel destroyed half of the buildings in Gaza. While some question the Military Necessity of this action, Lt.-Col. (res.) Jonathan Conricus reminds us that,
“You know, when you look at the Gaza Strip, a civilian who never went there, if you see a picture of it or a video of it, you see houses, but now there’s a lot of destruction there. What you cannot see is the underground facilities under the houses. But you also cannot see the amount of weapons and explosives that were hidden in ordinary houses.
There’s hardly a house that our troops go to that doesn’t have either an entrance to a tunnel, a shaft, or weapons that are stocked inside, or explosives, or where they are manufacturing weapons, or it’s a hideout for terrorist activity, or any of the above combined.“
Civilian structures containing military assets become legitimate targets of Military Necessity, justifying the quick and efficient neutralization of the target.
Conversely, Humanity forbids actions unnecessary to achieve that object.
Unguided bombs constitute 40%-45% of the munitions dropped by Israel while Precision Guided Munitions (PGM) account for the remainder. While some frame this development as a potential violation of Humanity, the opposite holds true. First, Israel uses dive-bombing which allows unguided bombs to exhibit similar accuracy to PGMs. Second, Israel’s use of PGMs represents an all time high for PGM usage in urban warfare. Given the incredibly high cost of PGMs, unguided bombs remain necessary to achieve Israel’s objective of destroying Hamas, therefore upholding Humanity.
Proportionality requires that even when actions may be justified by Military Necessity, such actions not be unreasonable or excessive.
Israel uses a large amount of 2,000 pound bombs, a bomb seldom used by Western militaries. While some frame this as a possible violation of Proportionality, Israel needs to use heavy bombs to destroy Hamas’s incredibly sophisticated tunnel network, a vital Military Necessity the likes of which never seen before by Western militaries. Deploying 2,000-pound bunker busting bombs to target Hamas's tunnels exemplifies reasonable and measured actions, thereby maintaining Proportionality.
Distinction
Distinction [requires] parties to a conflict to apply certain legal categories, principally the distinction between the armed forces and the civilian population.
Hamas explicitly violates of the LOAC principle of Distinction. They weaponizes Israel’s humanity, as Hamas openly states, Israel loves life while Hamas loves death. Hamas proves this as they locate their command centers within hospitals, store weapons in mosques, build data centers under UNRWA’s HQ, use human shields, take civilian hostages, and fail to distinguish their fighters. All of the preceding constitute grave violations of Distinction.
Despite Hamas violating this cardinal and intransgressible rule, Israel goes above and beyond to practice Distinction. Israel evacuated northern Gaza to the greatest extent possible, despite Hamas preventing civilians from leaving. The population surge in Rafah (250,000 to 1,500,000) highlights the success of the evacuation effort. While this presents humanitarian challenges of its own, Israel admirably practiced Distinction by conducting the evacuation.
Civilian Death Analysis
Israel’s adherence to LOAC results in civilian casualty rate mirroring the US’s in their Iraq War (2003-2011), even though Israel confronts an enemy far more challenging than what the US encountered in Iraq. Given that US & Allied forces account for half of civilian deaths, 40,000 opposition fighters and 99,000 civilian fatalities fall under their responsibility. This results in a ratio of 2.5 civilians killed per opposition fighter killed.
Israel counts 12,000 Hamas fighters eliminated while Hamas claims they only lost 6,000. The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry also reports around 29,000 total deaths, encompassing Hamas fighters, other militants, and civilians killed by Palestinian militant misfire.
To tilt the scales against Israel I will use the average of Israel’s and Hamas’s estimates for combatant deaths (9,000) which results in 20,000 civilian deaths. This indicates for Israel a civilian death ratio of 2.2 civilians killed for every Hamas fighter killed, lower than the US's ratio in the Iraq war despite biasing the results against Israel.
This is War, not Genocide
Israel continues to uphold LOAC while Hamas practices genocide. Israel's upholding of LOAC results in fewer civilian deaths than seen in the US's Iraq War, despite Israel encountering a tougher enemy. A thorough analysis of Israel's actions in Gaza reveals that this war is not genocide but a war against Hamas's genocide.