Under international humanitarian law, it is prohibited to launch an attack that could lead to any civil life, civil life injury or damage to civilian objects considered disproportionate to the planned direct military advantage, according to the British Red Cross.
“There is evidence that the Israeli army has tolerated up to 20 civilians to target a single ordinary Hamas fighter,” said Kenneth Roth, an eminent human rights activist and former executive director of Human Rights Watch, referring to a report by the New York Times citing an Israeli military order 2023 which gave the officers Hamas activists in Gaza. “No reasonable observer would consider only a proportional cost.”
“Even an attack on a military target can be a war crime if the planned civil cost is disproportionate,” Roth noted.
When asked to comment on, the FDI referred to NBC News to its initial response to the Times report, claiming that the Israeli army has remained “attached to the rule of law”.
Throughout the war, the Israeli army has often published only limited information on many of its strikes, including those which caused high civil death tolls, which makes it difficult to determine where these attacks are part of proportionality rules.
In the case of his attack on July 10, the FDIs have not yet concluded his probe – and he has not yet publicly identified the member of Hamas that his forces would have targeted or provide a clear overview of the necessary measures to avoid having an impact on civilians before launching the strike. Asked on Monday for an update on his probe and to respond to concerns about proportionality on the deadly balance sheet of the strike, the FDIs said that he would return to the issue but had not yet provided any answers on Wednesday morning.
“International humanitarian law forces an attacker to use all achievable means to avoid civilian victims,” said Roth. “This includes selecting the day of the day when civilians are the least likely to be injured and weapons that can reach a military objective while minimizing civil damage.”
Stressing a recent attack in which dozens of people were killed and injured in a seaside coffee in Gaza City, he said that the “probable” Israeli forces “violated the duty to take all the precautions feasible to save civilians from an attack”.
Matthew Savill, Director of Military Sciences of the Royal United SERVICES Institute, based in London, said in an email that “the controversy on FDI operations comes from a few key areas: how they choose targets and then extend to which they are ready to accept civilian victims.”
“Certain affirmations on their rules of engagement indicate that they have a very broad categorization of what they are authorized to deal with as a military target,” he said. “In other cases, the Israelis have launched strikes, often air attacks, which seem to have killed a large number of civilians alongside their legitimate target.
James Sweeney, professor of international law at Lancaster University based in the United Kingdom, said in a telephone interview that it was generally “good practices to maintain a detailed newspaper in the decision-making process that enters a particular attack”.
Referring to the strike outside the Hope project clinic, he said: “I imagine that we exist. As for whether he will never see the light of day, I would not be so sure.”
A fatal campaign
Israel launched its assault on the Gaza Strip after the October 7 attacks led by Hamas, in which 1,200 people were killed and around 250 hostage, marking a major climbing in a decades conflict.
Since then, more than 57,000 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip, including thousands of children, while tens of thousands of others have been injured, according to Palestinian health authorities, and a large part of the enclave has been destroyed.
The soldiers and representatives of the Israeli government have repeatedly accused Hamas of exploiting civil sites, including hospitals and schools, to cover its operations, an accusation that health officials and Hamas have denied.
Kobi Michael, principal researcher of two Israeli reflection groups, the Institute for National Security Studies and Misgav, generally defended the Israel campaign in Gaza. He said in a telephone interview that it was obvious that the Israeli army had taken “certain risks” with regard to “collateral damage” when “the importance of a target of Hamas is very high”. In other cases, he said, there were “unfortunately some mistakes”.
