{"id":110473,"date":"2024-02-02T18:00:33","date_gmt":"2024-02-02T16:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=110473"},"modified":"2024-02-02T14:11:16","modified_gmt":"2024-02-02T12:11:16","slug":"06-00-101","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=110473","title":{"rendered":"West Point Urban Warfare Expert: IDF \u2018Implemented More Measures to Prevent Civilian Casualties Than Any Other Military in History\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>West Point Urban Warfare Expert: IDF \u2018Implemented More Measures to Prevent Civilian Casualties Than Any Other Military in History\u2019<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/h5>\n

Jack Elbaum<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Photo:JACK GUEZ<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The chair of urban warfare studies at West Point\u2019s Modern Warfare Institute released an op-ed on Wednesday arguing that, during Israel\u2019s war on Hamas, the country \u201chas implemented more measures to prevent civilian casualties than any other military in history.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

John Spencer, who served in the U.S. Army for 25 years and did two tours in Iraq, took to the pages of Newsweek<\/i><\/a> to push back on allegations that Israel is indiscriminately targeting civilians and even committing genocide. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAs someone who has served two tours in Iraq and studied urban warfare for over a decade,\u201d Spencer explained, \u201cIsrael has taken precautionary measures even the United States did not do during its recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

He wrote: \u201cOne of the best ways to prevent civilian casualties in urban warfare is to provide warning and evacuate urban areas before the full combined air and ground attack commences. This tactic is unpopular for obvious reasons: It alerts the enemy defender and provides them the military advantage to prepare for the attack. The United States did not do this ahead of its initial invasion of Iraq in 2003, which involved major urban battles to include in Baghdad. It did not do this before its April 2004 Battle of Fallujah (though it did send civilian warnings before the Second Battle of Fallujah six months later).\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBy contrast,\u201d Spencer continues, \u201cIsrael provided days and then weeks of warnings, as well as time for civilians to evacuate multiple cities in northern Gaza before starting the main air-ground attack of urban areas. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) employed their 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.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s use of hundreds of thousands of leaflets, almost 20,000 cell phone calls, 65,000 texts, and 6,000,000 voicemails to civilians, along with alerting civilians where its ground operations would be on a day-to-day basis, is also unprecedented, says Spencer. Not to mention pausing fighting for four hours \u201cover multiple consecutive days\u201d to allow civilians to leave war zones.<\/span><\/p>\n

Israel may have needed to take such unprecedented measures because the conditions in which they are fighting are also unprecedented, according to analysts. Gaza is a small piece of land \u2014 only 25 miles long and, at its widest point, 7.5 miles wide \u2014 and extremely densely populated. To make matters more difficult, there are between 350 and 450 miles of tunnels under the strip, which is only 141 square miles, meaning almost the entire territory has Hamas infrastructure under it.<\/span><\/p>\n

On this point, Spencer writes, \u201cNo 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.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Protecting civilians in such an environment is particularly challenging, which is likely one of the reasons Israel took the measures they have.<\/span><\/p>\n

At the same time, the destruction in Gaza is widespread. More than half of the buildings are likely no longer habitable and the war has created a humanitarian crisis where people are unable to gain access to food and necessary medical care.<\/span><\/p>\n

Additionally, the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health says<\/a> almost 27,000 Palestinians have been killed during the war, although it does not differentiate between civilians and terrorists. Based on<\/a> Israeli and U.S. estimates, the civilian-to-combattant casualty ratio is somewhere between 1.5-to-1 and 3-to-1, which is significantly better than the international average, which is 9-to-1 according to the United Nations, but still means thousands of uninvolved civilians have been killed.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTo be clear, I am outraged by the civilian casualties in Gaza,\u201d Spencer makes sure to emphasize, \u201cBut it\u2019s crucial to direct that outrage at the right target. And that target is Hamas.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n

Zawarto\u015b\u0107 publikowanych artyku\u0142\u00f3w i materia\u0142\u00f3w nie reprezentuje pogl\u0105d\u00f3w ani opinii Reunion’68,<\/em>
\nani te\u017c webmastera Blogu Reunion’68, chyba ze jest to wyra\u017anie zaznaczone.
\nTwoje uwagi, linki, w\u0142asne artyku\u0142y lub wiadomo\u015bci prze\u015blij na adres:
\n<\/em>webmaster@reunion68.com<\/span><\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

West Point Urban Warfare Expert: IDF \u2018Implemented More Measures to Prevent Civilian Casualties Than Any Other Military in History\u2019 Jack Elbaum Photo:JACK GUEZ The chair of urban warfare studies at West Point\u2019s Modern Warfare Institute released an op-ed on Wednesday arguing that, during Israel\u2019s war on Hamas, the country \u201chas implemented more measures to prevent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110473"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=110473"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110473\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":110523,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110473\/revisions\/110523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=110473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=110473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=110473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}