White House acknowledges ordering Israel to risk greater casualties

Eliyahu Tulshinski

December 5, 2023

The Biden Administration is ordering Israel to risk unnecessary casualties as it works to free hostages and force the Hamas Islamic organization to surrender, possibly endangering both goals.

Ignore Geneva Convention?

Even wars are, at least theoretically, governed by rules. And those rules are subject to exceptions. The Geneva Convention, for example, provides exceptions to the normal protection afforded to civilian institutions like hospitals:

Article 19: The protection to which civilian hospitals are entitled shall not cease unless they are used to commit, outside their humanitarian duties, acts harmful to the enemy. [Emphases added].

This article, if followed, removes the incentive to use civilians at hospitals as human shields. In contrast, any decision to abandon a plan to attack an enemy fighter surrounding himself with civilians breeds innumerable repeat episodes, to the detriment of the civilians, hostages that may be held by those fighters and soldiers attempting to free from.

It also allows one side of a conflict to ignore rules of war while demanding adherence, beyond the letter of the law, by the other. Hamas' behavior, for example, violates numerous articles of the Convention, including its concise prohibition on hostage taking, leaving no room for ambiguity:

Article 34: The taking of hostages is prohibited.

Nonetheless, the White House has repeatedly pressured Israel to avoid firefights in hospitals including hospitals in which Hamas fighters were suspected of holding hostages, including 17 women who may have been subjected to sexual violence:

[A]n American official said on Monday that Hamas militants likely refrained from releasing female hostages, leading to the resumption of Israel's military action in Gaza, due to concerns that these women might publicly disclose experiences of sexual violence. [Emphases added].

Missed opportunities

Secretary of State Antony Blinken continues to demand that Israel avoid firefights in hospitals with Hamas members hiding inside, even though previous delays by the IDF in entering hospitals ended in disaster. The IDF's delay in entering Al Rantisi Hospital in Gaza City allowed Hamas to escape with the hostages who were held there. Israeli soldiers found rope next to the legs of chairs on which the hostages were bound.

After waiting outside al-Shifa Hospital, also in Gaza City, for several days, the IDF entered the hospital area only to find the dead bodies of two women, murdered in captivity by Hamas, next to the hospital's campus.

One X account sarcastically paraphrased Blinken's message as demanding that the IDF attack Hamas only with “magic ray guns, the ones that kill terrorists but damage nothing else.”

Sharing war plans

Once, spies were needed to obtain the war plans of the opposing side in a military conflict and great efforts were made to protect their secrecy, even spreading disinformation about the location of an attack, as the U.S. and the U.K. did before landing in Normandy during World War II. Not for Israel, though.

The Guardian reports that, following additional pressure by Blinken, Vice-President Kamala Harris and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, to finish the conflict with Hamas within weeks, rather than months, and to reduce casualties among their human shields, Israel agreed to expand its warning system. Rather than simply alert the residents of a building of an impending attack, and giving Hamas fighters a chance to escape with civilians, Israel is now warning entire neighborhoods beforehand with a digital map.

US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby then announced that the White House was able to get Israel to agree to a concession few other nations would entertain: “to telegraph their punches."

Have US warnings led to a change in Israel’s strategy?

Israel has devised a new map which subdivides Gaza into hundreds of small blocs, which it is using to announce its evacuation orders. Israel points to that initiative as evidence of its desire to protect civilians by focusing on the most precise areas possible and giving people time to flee by announcing them ahead of its attacks. . . .

[T]he US signalled on Sunday that it viewed the grid approach as evidence that Israel was taking its stance seriously. “We believe they have been receptive to our messages here of trying to minimise civilian casualties,” US national security council spokesperson John Kirby told ABC yesterday, pointing to the map as evidence. “There’s not a whole lot of modern militaries that would do that … to telegraph their punches in that way. So they are making an effort.” [Emphases added].

More death

Letting Hamas know, together with civilians, which neighborhood is about to be attacked, of course leads to an abundance of “empty buildings” being brought down. Soldiers must then chase down on foot the Hamas members who “escaped” the bombing.

In reaction to Israel's adoption of these more strict “rules of engagement,” The New York Post carried the headline, “How Israeli forces take big risks to avoid harming Gaza civilians.” The paper concluded that IDF soldiers following the White House demands are now in greater danger:

Blinken demanded Thursday that Israel not the [sic] restart the fighting until it established a “clear plan” to avoid civilian harm – and threatened to withdraw support should it not comply with “humanitarian law.” . . .

Mitigating harm by assuming risk

The terror group’s war-crime strategy makes it nearly impossible for Israel to defend itself without more casualties. But that doesn’t mean they don’t try to avert losses.

“How does one deal with a terrorist infrastructure that is underneath the hospital? We can strike it from the air, but of course that has its implications – and that’s why we chose not to do it,” Shefler said.

The military leader also detailed multiple other creative strategies the IDF uses to mitigate harm to Gazans – from technology use to more rudimentary tactics – putting its own soldiers at greater risk to do so. [Emphases added].

This “greater risk” may have already led to the death of Israelis. One battle with Hamas that was won on the ground rather than from the air had IDF soldiers entering the building from which the Hamas were shooting, as seen in the below video.

Two soldiers, Ben Zussman and Binyamin Needham, whose families came to Israel from the U.S. and the U.K., respectively, were killed and two other soldiers were wounded in that urban battle.

Lost wars

The increased loss of soldiers resulting from strict rules of engagement may not only cause setbacks on the way to victory; it may preclude victory altogether. Frontline News recently covered the fall of ISIS under Trump's loosened rules of engagement and its resurgence under Biden's tightened rules.

Many historians, in fact, blame rules of engagement for America's only military loss — the Vietnam War. At one point in that war, U.S. pilots were put in extreme danger by a seemingly irrational rule:

American units couldn't hunt the anti-aircraft units proactively. Rules of engagement said they couldn't even hit the guns when they found them until the enemy unit fired or at least activated radar against them.

Disturbingly, Israel's enemies have openly stated that they want to bog the nation down in a “another Vietnam.” White House demands on Israel are not helping it avoid such a scenario.

See our other coverage of the Middle East and rules of engagement: