Urban Warfare Expert: Israel Trying ‘More Than Any Nation In History’ To Prevent Civilian Casualties

NEW YORK (VINnews) — In a remarkable defense of Israel’s military strategies in Gaza, urban warfare expert John Spencer wrote that Israel has “taken more measures to avoid needless civilian harm than virtually any other nation that’s fought an urban war in history.”

Writing in a Newsweek Op-Ed, Spencer, who served two tours in Iraq and consequently studied urban warfare, claims that Israel took more precautions to protect civilians than the US did in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Spencer explained that The IDF’s use of precision guided munitions (PGMs), including Small Diameter Bombs (SDBs) has enabled it to target terrorists while avoiding harm to civilians adjacent to them. The Israelis even gather information on civilian presence via satellite imagery before striking targets, and employ other unique methods to prevent civilian casualties.

Additionally, the IDF provides warnings and calls on civilians to evacuate before activating its attack forces, even though this can alert enemy combatants in the same vicinity. The US didn’t provide warnings during its initial invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Even in this war, which started with the unprovoked and brutal assault on Israeli soldiers and civilians, the IDF continues its practice of calling and texting ahead of an air strike as well as roof-knocking, where they drop small munitions on the roof of a building notifying everyone to evacuate the building before a strike.

No military, says Spencer, has ever implemented any of these practices in war before.

The IDF has also air-dropped flyers to give civilians instructions on when and how to evacuate, including with safe corridors. (The U.S. implemented these tactics in its second battle of Fallujah and 2016-2017 operation against ISIS in Mosul.) Israel has dropped over 520,000 pamphlets, and broadcast over radio and through social media messages to provide instruction for civilians to leave combat areas.

Israel’s use of real phone calls to civilians in combat areas (19,734), SMS texts (64,399) and pre-recorded calls (almost 6 million) to provide instructions on evacuations is also unprecedented. The IDF conducted daily four-hour pauses over multiple consecutive days of the war to allow civilians to leave active combat areas. While pauses for civilian evacuations after a war or battle has started is not completely new, the frequency and predictability of these in Gaza have been historic.

Another historical first in war measures to prevent civilian casualities was Israel’s distribution of IDF military maps and urban warfare graphics to assist civilians with day to day evacuations and alerting them to where the IDF will be operating. No military in history has ever done this.

The humanitarian corridor operated by the IDF may have cost it the chance to achieve one of its ultimate goals in the war:Eliminating Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. The terrorist mastermind allegedly was able to disguise himself and pass through the corridor to southern Gaza, where he is believed to be hiding out with some of the Israeli hostages.

Spencer concludes that “The reality is that when it comes to avoiding civilian harm, there is no modern comparison to Israel’s war against Hamas. Israel is not fighting a battle like Fallujah, Mosul, or Raqqa; it is fighting a war involving synchronous major urban battles. No military in modern history has faced over 30,000 urban defenders in more than seven cities using human shields and hiding in hundreds of miles of underground networks purposely built under civilian sites, while holding hundreds of hostages.”

Spencer stresses that “I am outraged by the civilian casualties in Gaza. But it’s crucial to direct that outrage at the right target. And that target is Hamas.

“It is outrageous that Hamas spent decades and billions of dollars building tunnels under civilian homes and protected areas for the sole purpose of using Palestinian civilians as human shields. It is outrageous that Hamas does not allow civilians in their tunnels, that Hamas says and takes actions to create as many civilian deaths as possible—both its own and Israeli. The atrocities committed on Oct. 7 are outrageous. That Hamas fights in civilian clothes, intermixed within civilians, and launches rockets at Israeli civilians from Palestinian civilian areas is outrageous.

“The sole reason for civilian deaths in Gaza is Hamas. For Israel’s part, it’s taken more care to prevent them than any other army in human history.”