Thursday 6 June 2024

Another Israeli airstrike with "collateral damage"

Yet again, an Israeli airstrike in Gaza kills dozens of civilians, including women and children. It's beyond comprehension. Posecuting a war in a dense urban environment where thousands of civilians are sheltering as refugees is as challenging a task as any form of military operation. So it is imperative that when launching a raid, the operational commander has a legal and moral obligation to make sure that any civilians known to be in the targeted area have to be protected. What went wrong this time? The destination for the air-launched bombs, a UN school, was known to contain senior Hamas commanders and an operational structure. But if the Israeli intelligence was that good, surely it must also have been known that Palestinian families were sheltering in the same building. Bombs cannot distinguish between Hamas fighters and civilians if they are all in the same target spot. So why did the airstrike go ahead when the risk of "collateral damage" was so high? Ever since the war began in Gaza following the October 7 atrocities committed by Hamas in Israel, the Israeli military have faced an enemy that has been hiding among innocent people, making the task of precision targeting almost impossible. Tragically this is why so many tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed and injured and made homeless. But after eight months of war when so many mistakes have been made - humanitarian aid workers killed, hospitals bombed, a campsite in Rafah which caught fire after an airstrike, killing at least 45 people - how is it possible that another mistake may have been made, killing 35 civilians? The Israeli military have detailed how 20 Hamas fighters in the school were killed. So more civilians than Hamas fighters lost their lives. This can't be right.

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