Israel has done more to prevent civilian casualties in Gaza than any other army in the world, chair of urban warfare studies at West Point, John Spencer said in an extensive thread posted on x (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday.
In the thread, he provided multiple examples of precautions that the IDF takes that other armies do not take to the same extent, or even at all.
IMO Israel has implemented more measure to prevent civilian casualties in urban warfare than any other military in the history of war. This includes many measure the U.S. has (or has not) taken in wars & battles but also many measures no military in the world has ever taken.
— John Spencer (@SpencerGuard) January 30, 2024
One of the most well-known examples of this is the various methods of warning before conducting attacks against Hamas.
He addressed this in multiple replies to the thread, one saying, “Call/Text ahead of a strike with (at times) roof-knocking (no military has ever implemented in war). In some cases, the IDF will call, text, drop small munitions on the roof of a building. While limited in the context of the strike it has been used in this war.”
He even addressed some measures that the IDF took at the cost of its tactical advantage to save human lives.
Hamas maximizes harm to civilians in Gaza by hiding behind them.The IDF minimizes harm to civilians in Gaza by dropping endless flyers urging them to leave harms way. pic.twitter.com/zLXmQDj5TT
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) October 13, 2023
“Provide warning and evacuate urban areas/cities before the full combined air and ground attack begins. While the tactic does alert the enemy defender and provide them the military advantage to prepare further, it is one of the best ways to prevent civilian casualties,” he said.
The thread then addressed the unique complexities of warfare in the Gaza Strip, saying “No military in modern history has faced 30k defenders embedded in more than more than seven cities, using human shields and hundreds of miles of underground networks purposely built under civilian sites while holding hundreds of hostages and launching over +12k rockets at the attacking military’s civilians areas.”
The thread addresses common criticisms of the IDF’s methodology
Additionally, a leading criticism of how Israel is conducting its war against Hamas is the nature of the explosives being used. Criticisms include whether they are precision-guided missiles (PCMs) vs. unguided, and the size of the payload vs. the tactical advantage gained.
These issues were addressed in the thread as well.
On the issue of PCMs, he said, “Despite the ignorance of reporting on ratios of PCMs to non-PCMs, Israel has used many types of PCMs to include lower collateral damage munitions/small diameter bombs & technologies & tactics that increase the accuracy of non-PCMs (dive bombing) limit civilian causalities (sat imagery, AI, cell phone presence.)”
“Also myths about the choice of munitions & proportionality assessment/value of target/collateral damage estimate, such as saying a 500 lbs bomb would achieve the same military task as a 2,000 lbs bomb with no mention of tunnels that would require greater penetration or availability of types/quantity of munitions,” he said regarding claims made against Israel for using heavy bombs as opposed to a lighter variety.
The thread finished with the following message “Again, Israel has implemented more measures to prevent civilian casualties than any other military in the history of war. While some have argued Israel could have waited longer, used different munitions, or not conducted the war at all – these all fail to acknowledge the context of Israel’s war from the hostages, rockets, tunnels, existential threat of Hamas, and more but also fail to recognize what Israel has done to prevent civilians casualties.”
Spencer, a former US Army officer and now chair of urban warfare studies at West Point, has contributed his opinion on the IDF’s performance and tactics in multiple operations in the past as well.
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