Israel Matzav

'We won't be able to live with these people if we just butcher them'

Before the IDF hit Hamas-operated targets, it scrutinized them to protect the safety of non-combatants.

“Our goal,” Captain O says, is to assure that “no innocent civilians are hurt.”

This objective is complicated severely by the fact that Hamas routinely locates its weapons among civilians, for reasons discussed below. It does so in total violation of the Geneva Convention and some 700 years of the just-war tradition.

Amid these difficulties during Pillar Defense, the IDF aimed to blast a residential building in Gaza that it believed contained ammunition. While the IDF simply could have bombed the joint, it took multiple steps to protect Palestinian civilians.

First, IDF aircraft released leaflets in the area to tell people that the building would be smashed from above, and that they should evacuate. This tactic also was employed in 2009’s Operation Cast Lead, a similar campaign to stop Hamas’s missiles. “The Israelis dropped a million leaflets warning the population of impending attacks and phoned tens of thousands of Palestinian households in Gaza urging them in Arabic to leave homes where Hamas might have stashed weapons or be preparing to fight,” Great Britain’s Colonel Kemp said of that operation. “Similar messages were passed on in Arabic on Israeli radio broadcasts.” He added: “When possible, they left at least four hours’ notice to civilians to leave areas designated for attack, an action that handed a distinct advantage to Hamas.”

Second, in case anyone thought the Israelis were bluffing, the IDF signaled that they were serious. Their method is called “Knock on the Door.” It involves dropping a small, low-impact bomb on the roof of the targeted building. This tells people the IDF is not kidding and will return soon to take care of business.

Third, once it was empty, the IDF bombed the building, and Hamas’s weapons were rendered harmless.

Hamas, Captain O says, gives Gazans a totally different message: Rather than encourage these civilians to flee, Hamas tells them that it is their Islamic duty to remain in their apartments and become martyrs. Thus, Hamas tries to use innocent men, women, and children as human shields. If this successfully prevents Israel from neutralizing ammunition dumps, bomb factories, and rocket launchers, all the better for Hamas. And if Israel bombs such facilities and wounds or kills civilians, Hamas can wheel in the compliant and sympathetic global media to document the latest example of “Israeli atrocities.”

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While admirable on many levels, such trigger shyness also seems borderline suicidal. Not only is Israel not as reckless as her enemies claim; the IDF has likely some terrorists live to kill another day.

Israel’s attempts to limit civilian bloodshed also contrast severely with Hamas, which heaves missiles onto playgrounds full of Jewish schoolchildren. In the town of Sderot, Israeli kids hear alarms when rockets are en route. At one such facility, they have just 15 seconds to dash into a giant concrete caterpillar. It looks festive — but actually is a cheerfully painted bomb shelter. 

In all, Hamas’s rockets can slam any of 994,000 Israelis within 60 seconds of their launch in Gaza.

Given Hamas’s disdain for human life, why doesn’t the IDF scrap the warning flyers and “knocks on the door” and just let its bombs rip?

“We won’t be able to live with these people if we just butcher them,” Captain O says. He makes a fascinating point. Putting aside for a moment America’s benevolent occupation of Japan after World War II, the U.S. did detonate atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It then shipped the vast majority of its soldiers back home, all the way across the Pacific. Most Americans gave Japan little thought until Datsuns, Mazdas, and Toyotas arrived in the mid 1970s.

Israelis lack that luxury.

Labels: human shields, IDF, Operation Cast Lead, Operation Pillar of Defense, Palestinian terrorists, Richard Kemp

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:27 PM