Thread by @SpencerGuard

Israel has done more to prevent civilian casualties in war than any military in history — above & beyond what international law requires & more than the US did in its wars in Iraq & Afghanistan -- setting a standard that will be both hard & potentially problematic to repeat. 🧵

Here (again for all the not so expert ‘experts’) are many of the measures and steps the IDF have taken 👇

1 - Evacuated civilians out of cities to a high % (70-90%) before beginning a full ground invasion in conventional attacks that seek to destroy enemy defenders. The U.S. did not do this in the invasion of Iraq, Afghanistan, Panama, Vietnam Tet Counter offensive (Hue), Korean War (Seoul), Philippines (Manila), nor the attacks during counterinsurgencies campaigns against ISIS such as 2016-2017 Battle of Mosul (civilians initially told to stay), 2017 Raqqa.

2 - Provided safe routes and a humanitarian zone for evacuating civilians. Despite the reports of the IDF conducting operations near the routes and zone, they emplaced IDF soldiers along the route to protect civilians while Hamas prevented civilians from using the routes, attacked civilians on the routes to include shooting, and emplaced rocket launchers next to the route and zone.

3 - Used more than just flyers to notify, locate, encourage civilians to temporarily evacuate main combat areas. Israel has dropped more than 7.2 million flyers, but also made over 79,000 direct phones calls, sent over 13.7 million text messages, and left over 15 million pre-recorded voicemails to notify civilians that they need to leave main combat areas. The U.S. has never deployed these other direct electronic measures especially at that scale to reach civilians. idf.il/en/mini-sites/…

4 - Conducted daily multi-hour pauses of all combat operations during battles to allow civilians to evacuate. Leaving IDF in direct threat of attack to allow civilians to pass through friendly lines during the battles. The IDF have done this daily for months, starting as far back as November. The U.S. has not done this in major battles. govextra.gov.il/media/jtwnzt45…

5 - Handed out their military maps. The IDF (first time in the history of war) handed out their military maps to civilians and used their maps to communicated directly to civilians not only for localized evacuation, but to notify civilians where the IDF would be operating on a day-to-day basis, where civilians should avoid. This information also went to Hamas and prevent much of the IDF's ability to surprise Hamas in battles. jpost.com/arab-israeli-c…

6 - Conducted “roof knocks.” At the beginning of the war the 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. No other army in the world does this.

7 - Developed a methodology to track civilian presence in real time and used that methodology to drive operations. The IDF Civilian Harm Mitigation Cell (commanded by a 1 Star General) can now track the presence of civilians in real time using cell phone presence, satellite, and drone footage, and street by street BDA. The data creates color coding of the IDF military maps which restrict where the IDF can operate, conduct strikes, etc.

8 - Emplaced legal advisors at low levels (lower than standard U.S. operations) and directly in the targeting process. The IDF has legal advisers incorporated into the targeting process, a deliberate step, and present at brigade and division levels.

9 - Imposed restrictions on the use of force. This includes altering rules of engagements and release authority for strikes and operations during a battle. Implemented controls measures such as restricted fire lines and zones, no fire areas (on protected objects/building and sensitive sites (more than legal requirements) where conducting an operation, entering, or even returning fire in some locations would require the Chief of the General Staff of the Israel Defense Forces approval.

10 – Conducted large call out operations where the IDF encircle a location, such as the Al-Nasser Hospital, but also entire neighborhoods (10s of thousands of people) in Khan Yunis that are encircled and then told to evacuate through IDF positions (increasing the risk to the IDF) and then large facial recognition assets are used to identify Hamas members trying to blend in with the evacuating civilians who are detained without harming civilians.

Rather than argue that the IDF did not do all the above measures 👆, or provide a military how has done more in war, critics & pundits either cherry pick from the practices or say it does not matter because the IDF measures have not been effective based on a kabuki dance of statistics they can find/frame and compare the war in Gaza to single battles that do not have nearly the same context. But still, the problem is that the IDF have been effective. justsecurity.org/93105/israeli-…

The IDF did successfully evacuate over 850,000 civilians out of a 1 million (85 to 90%) in Northern Gaza before the heaviest fighting began. This is actually consistent with many urban battles of both WWII and modern encirclements in urban warfare history that shows that no matter the effort, about 10 percent of populations stay. wsj.com/world/middle-e…

The IDF 1 to 1.5 if not 1 to 1 combatant to civilian ratio (something uniquely focused on by the world and people how do not know the history of war or urban warfare) is better than any battles, past or modern, in urban warfare with even remotely similar context.

The Hamas run Gaza Health Ministry estimate of over 34,000 civilian deaths does not acknowledge a single Hamas fighter death (nor any deaths due to the misfiring of thousands (20%) of Hamas or other terrorists’ rockets that have landed inside Gaza or Hamas friendly fire, Hamas killing civilians, or deaths by natural causes). It is literally supposed to be every death in Gaza since October 7th.

The IDF estimates it has killed about 13,000 Hamas operatives. Common sense would subtract the IDF estimate of Hamas fighters (13,000) from the Hamas Gaza Health Ministry total deaths in Gaza (34,000) to get 21,000 civilian deaths according to Hamas. That is a 1 to 1.5 or 1.6 ratio. But even the Gaza Health Ministry recently announced they could not verify over 11,000 of their reported 34,000 deaths. So, combined with historical Hamas exaggerations, the combatant to civilian death ratio is more likely 1 to 1 which would be historically low for high intensity urban warfare.

In the 2016-2017 Battle of Mosul, the biggest urban battles since WWII, the U.S. led Iraqi Security Force killed 10,000 civilians to destroy 4,000 ISIS in the city. That is a 1 to 2.5 combatant to civilian death ratio. In the 1945 Battle of Manila (which did have some variables similar to Gaza like high number of defenders, tunnels, and hostages), the American military killed 100,000 civilians to destroy 17,000 Japanese defenders, that is a 1 to 6 combatant to civilian ratio. The 1950 Second Battle of Seoul (another battle with similar variables to the battles in Gaza) American forces likely killed 10s of thousands (there is no record out how many died in the city battle out of the 2 million civilians that died in the war) to kill 7,000 North Korean enemy.

But the IDF also did reduce an already low combatant to civilian casualty ratio in the war. The New York Times reported in January that the daily civilian death toll had more than halved in the December and was down almost two-thirds from its peak by January. By time I visited Khan Yunis in February the civilian deaths caused by IDF actions in the war was very low. nytimes.com/2024/01/22/bri…

The real truth is that no one knows how many civilians have died in Gaza, especially not Hamas. There has never been a war/battle, especially an urban battle, where anyone could track the civilian deaths on a day-to-day basis and especially not down to the single digit. It is impossible. A year after the 2016-2017 Battle of Mosul, the Iraqi government did not know how many civilians had died in the battle with estimates from 11,000 to 40,000. pbs.org/newshour/show/…

Israel has not created a gold standard in civilian harm mitigation in war. That implies there is a standard in civilian casualties in war that is acceptable or not acceptable; that zero civilian deaths in war is remotely possible and should be the goal; that there is a set combatant to civilian ratio in war no matter the context or tactics of the enemy. But all available evidence shows that Israel has followed the laws of war, legal obligations, best practices in civilian harm mitigation and still found a way to reduce civilian casualties to historically low levels.