“`markdown
American Magazine Newsweek reported that civilian casualties have become the central issue in Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip, exposing the country to condemnation around the world. The magazine, in its investigation, highlighted that the strongest condemnations came from United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who both agreed the number of victims in Gaza is “staggering and very high.”
President Joe Biden stated that despite Israel receiving support from European countries and the United States, they “began to lose favor due to the indiscriminate bombing taking place.” The substantial Palestinian civilian death toll raised accusations of Israel committing war crimes or even genocide, “on the presumption that civilians are being targeted deliberately,” as mentioned in the investigation.
In its efforts to answer the question of whether the high number of civilian casualties and injuries in the Palestinian ranks indeed happened, Newsweek spoke with more than ten retired Israeli military officers and personnel, as well as U.S. army and intelligence officers, ensuring their anonymity for candid discussions. The magazine also engaged with prominent human rights experts.
While acknowledging the alarming number of victims in Gaza, Newsweek does not see it as disproportionate to the type of measures used under international law, pointing to new and exclusive data on the extent of Israeli attacks to support its findings. An officer in the U.S. Air Force involved in internal deliberations within President Joe Biden’s administration and discussions with Israeli counterparts suggested that part of the problem is ultimately Israel’s “arrogance,” adding that Israel lost the information war by destroying too much, “even if they could justify every single attack.”
According to Newsweek’s investigation, the Israeli offensive on Gaza is one of the most intense assaults in recent times, occurring in an area roughly twice the size of Washington D.C., with a population of about 2.3 million people. Unpublished data revealed by the magazine indicate that Israel struck approximately 25,000 “targets” in Gaza from the air, land, and sea, and launched around 140,000 missiles, 60% of which were artillery shells and 40% from aircraft.
Gaza’s government authorities claim that at least 24,500 civilians have died, including those missing under the rubble, a figure recognized as accurate by the international humanitarian community. According to Palestinian authorities, around 10,000 buildings were destroyed, including high-rise structures, with close to ten times as many damaged. Israel claims it identified over 800 tunnel openings in a subterranean system stretching 300 miles and destroyed over half of them. They also claim to have killed more than 6,000 fighters from the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and captured another two thousand.
A senior U.S. military intelligence officer alleges the Israeli bombing was “precise” but caused “significant” civilian damage. Contrasting that claim, Ken Roth, the former director of Human Rights Watch and visiting professor at Princeton University, stated, “It’s hard to believe that such widespread destruction was necessary to counter the threat posed by Hamas,” reflecting a viewpoint shared by many within the U.S. government.
Under international law, the principle of proportionality requires armed forces to refrain from launching attacks that could cause “excessive” harm to civilians compared to the anticipated concrete and direct military advantage. Attacking forces must take all “feasible” precautions to minimize civilian risks.
Newsweek reported that Israel declined to comment on the issues raised in this investigation. An Israeli Air Force officer, speaking unofficially, maintained that the civilian casualty count is “minimal” given the nature of the conflict.
The question of what constitutes an acceptable number of civilian casualties from a military and strategic standpoint remains without a definitive answer, says Newsweek. Third-party organizations like the Iraq Body Count, the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, and the London-based Airwars, which tracks and archives international air wars, have all sought to assess civilian fatalities in Gaza by comparing them to other recent conflicts from Syria to Ukraine. While such assessments concluded the war on Gaza as “unprecedented,” they did not answer how the enormity of civilian casualties is determined.
Israel has cast doubt on the Palestinian casualty figures, arguing they include Hamas fighters, claiming civilian deaths are the movement’s fault “for hiding behind them, or under schools and hospitals, or that it itself caused many of the deaths with its own weapons,” according to U.S. intelligence estimates.
The U.S. intelligence further estimated that on one occasion, the Israeli Air Force dropped close to two thousand bombs, totaling more than a thousand tons of explosives, over 72 hours. Newsweek’s investigation concludes with the statement from a senior American intelligence officer, raising concerns that Israel’s campaign effectively constitutes an attack on civilians, claiming that after two months, Israel killed only about 20% of the pre-war estimates of fighters, despite its assertions of targeting Hamas.
“`
