How Many Is Too Many?

THE NUMBER OF DEATHS IN GAZA RAISES QUESTIONS ABOUT ISRAEL'S TACTICS

- WILLIAM M. ARKIN

PALESTINIAN CIVILIAN CASUALTIES have become the issue in the Israel-Hamas war, precipitating worldwide condemnation of Israel. "A staggering and unacceptable number of civilian casualties," United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has said. "Far too many" Palestinians have been killed, said Secretary of State Antony Blinken. President Joe Biden summed up the dilemma on December 12, saying that while Israel has had European support in addition to U.S. backing, "they're starting to lose the support by indiscriminate bombing that takes place." 

The high number of Palestinian deaths has provoked accusations of Israeli war crimes and even genocide, on the premise that civilians are being intentionally targeted. Government officials from around the world and media outlets have sustained the impression that Israel is attacking hospitals, schools, refugee camps and humanitarian facilities, all seemingly with a disregard for civilian life. If Israel were attacking indiscriminately or targeting civilians-it's not that would indeed constitute a war crime.

Calculating the acceptability of taking any human life creates the weightiest of moral dilemmas, and the images of suffering in Gaza have prompted demands by many for a ceasefire. But armies must always weigh the cost of civilian lives against any perceived military advantage according to the laws of war.

To try to answer the question of whether so many civilian deaths and injuries are indeed too many according to legal definitions of proportionality -Newsweek spoke to over a dozen active and retired Israeli Defense Force (IDF) and U.S. military and intelligence officers, all of whom were able to speak more candidly because they were granted anonymity, often in criticizing the conduct of the war. Newsweek also spoke to a number of prominent human rights experts and has reviewed Israeli and American classified data relating to the conflict.