Israeli Tactics Greatly Reduced Gaza Civilian Casualty Rates
Israel’s detractors engage in moral inversion, falsely accusing Israel of crimes and sins that the enemies of the Jewish state commit. In the recently concluded summer war of 2014 between Israel and Hamas, the usual clique of UN organizations, human rights groups and media organizations accused Israel of recklessly causing disproportionate civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip, while paying less attention to Hamas crimes against both Israeli and Palestinian civilians. Groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch demanded investigations of Israel for war crimes and called for embargos against the Jewish state. But a web site that specializes in military analysis, DefenseNews, describes innovative Israeli tactics that significantly reduce civilian casualties. The article quotes Israeli Brig. Gen. Amikam Norkin, Israel Air Force chief of staff, who explained that
Protective Edge marked the first time fixed-wing fighters were used as dedicated assets to division- and brigade-level forces.
“Over the last year, we drilled in a very substantive way with the ground forces and we built a process where our fighters could attack at much closer distances … We did this hundreds of times during the operation.”
The result according to Norkin was that Israel was able to far surpass
an international average of five innocents killed for each targeted terrorist. He said preliminary data from Protective Edge indicates “we’re slowly closing in on numbers of one to one.
Norkin went on to explain,
“When there are residential buildings of three, four and five floors, and the civilians are already evacuated, fixed-wing precision air power is most effective. … I’m talking laser, [joint direct-attack munitions], all of them,”
Norkin’s claims received support from an American analyst of the use of air power and an Air Force general.
Ben Lambeth, a veteran air power author and analyst formerly of Santa Monica-based Rand Corp, said the response time and ranges that Israel claims to have conducted constitute a clear and possibly unprecedented achievement.
Retired US Air Force Lt. Gen. David Deptula said Israel appears to be headed in a very good direction. “Anything that reduces time, increases accuracy and drives down miss-distance is all good,” he said.
Will the media cover important post-conflict analysis?
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