Extraordinary Gaza achievement overlooked - 200 terrorists eliminated in hospital; none of 6200 human shields killed
Better than one-to-one
In an extraordinary battle to clear Gaza's largest hospital complex of Hamas terrorists using it as their northern headquarters, 513 terrorists were arrested and over 200 killed, without even one civilian casualty, as the IDF peacefully escorted 6,200 civilians out of the complex while battling Hamas and seizing weapons hid in the maternity ward and other departments.
Even a one-to-one civilian-to-terrorist casualty ratio would be an unprecedented success in minimizing civilian deaths, something Israel is close to achieving in this war. In this case, it was zero-to-one.
Risking soldiers to protect buildings
The IDF has utilized trailblazing measures to avoid civilian casualties throughout the war in Gaza, including the above described battle at Shifa Hospital in which two IDF soldiers were killed while securing the exterior of hospital. The IDF risked its own soldiers' lives by leaving buildings around the hospital standing, rather than evacuating the residents and leveling their apartments. Hamas took advantage of the reluctance to destroy Arab-owned property to station snipers in those buildings, killing the two soldiers.
Risking civilians to protect Hamas
Hamas, on the other hand, completely embeds terrorists among women and children in homes, hospitals and and schools in order to both cause Israel to cancel strikes when they spot civilians and to ensure that Israeli is condemned when civilians are killed despite efforts to avoid them, as attested to by the son of one of the founders of Hamas:
In fact, Hamas has a history of executing Gazans that dates back to long before the current war, when not a single Jew was allowed into Gaza:
Warn the target?
Civilians are not only not targeted by Israel, they are given ample time to evacuate military zones before combat begins, with the IDF dropping literally millions of flyers and placing thousands of phone calls ahead of combat. Women, children and elderly pass freely by checkpoints while young men are checked with facial recognition technology and questioned, but allowed to pass as well if no terror connections are found.
Meanwhile, Hamas blocked Gazans from leaving several combat zones and even shot at them.
Cancelled air strikes
Even after evacuation warnings, when civilians are no longer supposed to be in closed military zones, strikes against terrorists are routinely called off if civilians are spotted in the vicinity.
Extraordinary civilian casualty ratio
As a result, the civilian casualty ratio is extraordinarily low, for urban combat especially, in a situation where Hamas terrorists are dressed in jeans and t-shirts, base themselves out of residential apartments and crowded schools used as refugee centers, hospitals, and refugee centers, force children to gather around them and hide in a labyrinth of tunnels.
Israel verified at least 13,000 Hamas terrorists killed in the current war as of February 19th, with the total potentially being much higher. At that time, Hamas claimed that approximately 29,000 Gazans had been killed, a number which was proven to be a fabrication. Even if it was accurate, that 29,000 includes terrorists and many civilians killed by Hamas rockets which landed inside Gaza or by Hamas shooting civilians who refused to act as “human shields.” Civilians attempting to take international aid packages before Hamas could seize and sell them have also been shot and sometimes killed:
Even if one uses this artificial and almost certainly inflated figure of 29,000 killed, subtracting the minimum of 13,000 terrorist eliminations as well as those killed by Hamas leaves around one civilian killed for each Hamas terrorist, a 1:1 civilian casualty ratio. In fact, John Spencer, the Chair of Urban Warfare Studies at the Modern War Institute (MWI) at West Point concluded in a piece for Newsweek that, “The real [combatant to civilian] figure could be closer to 1 to 1.”
Israel is working so hard to minimize civilian casualties, through phone calls to residents of targeted buildings, that just one person has been killed, on average, in each air force attack, as Israel reported over 29,000 airstrikes at the same time that Hamas reported about 29,000 casualties.
Biden administration pressure
Like the media, the State Department ignored the IDF's extraordinary moves to protect civilians in Shifa Hospital, with the battle's protocol becoming the basis for future IDF protection of Hamas' human shields, and instead continued ramping up the pressure on America's strategic ally.
Shortly after the Shifa battle, the IDF, using thermal imaging, spotted armed gunmen operating near vehicles that turned out to belong to an NGO distributing food in Gaza. The drone operator initiated an attack on the vehicles, believing its seven occupants to be Hamas terrorists. Israel acknowledged the mistake, which led to the deaths of the workers, while pointing out that it regularly coordinates food deliveries with the same group and did not suddenly decide to target their workers, using the review of the incident to help ensure future aid workers are not mistaken for Hamas terrorists.
Despite the evidence that Israel did not target the aid workers, Biden used the incident to pressure Israel into a ceasefire, even as Hamas remains in power and female hostages are presumed to continue facing rape in the tunnels of Southern Gaza's Rafah.
Biden told Netanyahu that there needed to be a pause in the fighting following the IDF’s deadly strike on a World Central Kitchen convoy … Biden’s request for a pause in fighting outside the context of a hostage deal surprised Netanyahu …
Abandoning Gaza to Hamas
Shortly after a phone call with Biden, Israel pulled almost all of its forces out of Gaza. Biden insists that Israel reenter only to carry out limited, targeted raids on Hamas leaders, but not to free Gaza (and Gazans) of Hamas' totalitarian control.
Lean on the victim?
International lawyer Stephen Siller criticizes the Biden administration's approach to Hamas:
Outrage over aid-worker deaths is about saving Hamas, not civilians. All armies at war make tragic mistakes. But President Biden and Israel’s critics are cynically exploiting the incident as an excuse to shatter the alliance with the Jewish state.” Israel more than apologized for this tragic accident of war. “Israel has taken responsibility. What a concept. And what a contrast with its adversary.” Hamas has apologized for nothing and Biden demands nothing from Hamas …
Do as Biden says, not as Biden does
Siller also claims there's a hypocrisy to the Biden administration's approach to Hamas:
A recent Patriot Post article summarizes how Biden is telling Israel to “do what I say, not what I do”:
On August 26, 2021, America lost 13 warriors to a cowardly suicide bombing attack at the Kabul airport. That attack happened as American forces were following the surrender and retreat orders of their commander-in-chief, Joe Biden. In retaliation, Biden authorized an airstrike that ended up killing a U.S. aid worker and nine members of his family, seven of whom were children. At first, Team Biden did a bit of chest-thumping over the tough response to American deaths. Weeks later, when what officials called a “tragic mistake” became undeniable, it was quietly made public as a Friday afternoon news dump.
No U.S. troops were punished for that strike, . . . no Pentagon leaders were held accountable, [and] . . . Biden certainly never accepted responsibility. [Emphasis added.]
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