Israeli officers had the authority to risk killing up to 20 civilians, according to the New York Times.
The American newspaper, “The New York Times,” reported that Israel adopted flawed methods for identifying targets and assessing the risk of civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip.
The newspaper noted that at exactly one in the afternoon on October 7, 2023, the Israeli military command issued an order that unleashed one of the fiercest bombing campaigns in modern warfare.
This order was immediately implemented:
Granting mid-level Israeli officers the authority to strike thousands of fighters and military sites that were not priorities in previous wars in Gaza. Officers could now target not only senior Hamas leaders, weapon depots, and rocket launchers, which were the focus of previous campaigns, but also lower-ranking fighters. The order stipulated that officers had the authority to risk killing up to 20 civilians with each strike.
This meant that the army could target ordinary fighters while they were at home surrounded by relatives and neighbors, rather than only when they were alone outside.
An investigation by “The New York Times” concluded that Israel significantly weakened the safeguards intended to protect civilians, using flawed methods to find targets and assess the risk of civilian casualties, routinely failing to conduct post-strike reviews for civilian harm or to punish officers for violations, and ignoring warnings from within its own ranks and from senior American military officials about these shortcomings.
The Times investigation found the following:
Israel greatly expanded the range of military targets it sought to hit in preemptive airstrikes, while simultaneously increasing the number of civilians officers could risk in each attack. This led to Israel dropping nearly 30,000 shells on Gaza in the first seven weeks of the war, more than in the subsequent eight months combined. Additionally, the military command removed the daily cap on the cumulative number of civilians at risk from their airstrikes.
On a few occasions, senior commanders approved strikes on Hamas leaders, knowing that each would put over 100 non-combatants at risk.
The army conducted its strikes at such a pace that verifying legitimate targets became
challenging. Much of the pre-war database of vetted targets was depleted within days, and they
relied on an untested system to find new targets using AI on a wide scale.
The military often used a crude statistical model to assess the risk of civilian harm, sometimes
launching strikes hours after locating targets, increasing the risk of error. The model primarily
relied on estimates of mobile phone usage in broader areas rather than intensive surveillance of
specific buildings, as was common in previous Israeli campaigns.
From the first day of the war
Israel significantly reduced its use of what are known as “roof knocks,” or warning shots that give
civilians time to flee an imminent attack. When it could use smaller or more precise munitions to
achieve the same military objective, it sometimes caused more damage by dropping “dumb
bombs” in addition to 2,000-pound bombs.
In summarizing the findings of “The New York Times,” the Israeli military acknowledged that its
rules of engagement had changed after October 7 but claimed that its forces “continuously use
methods and means that comply with the rules of law.”
Source: “New York Times”
