Permissive airstrikes on non-military targets and the use of an artificial intelligence system have enabled the Israeli army to carry out its deadliest war on Gaza, a +972 and Local Call investigation reveals.
by Yuval Abraham
Part 7 - ‘Fighting human animals’
Hamas militants regularly operate out of an intricate network of tunnels built under large stretches of the Gaza Strip. These tunnels, as confirmed by the former Israeli intelligence officers we spoke to, also pass under homes and roads. Therefore, Israeli attempts to destroy them with aerial strikes are in many cases likely to lead to the killing of civilians. This may be another reason for the high number of Palestinian families wiped out in the current offensive.
The intelligence officers interviewed for this article said that the way Hamas designed the tunnel network in Gaza knowingly exploits the civilian population and infrastructure above ground. These claims were also the basis of the media campaign that Israel conducted vis-a-vis the attacks and raids on Al-Shifa Hospital and the tunnels that were discovered under it.
The intelligence officers interviewed for this article said that the way Hamas designed the tunnel network in Gaza knowingly exploits the civilian population and infrastructure above ground. These claims were also the basis of the media campaign that Israel conducted vis-a-vis the attacks and raids on Al-Shifa Hospital and the tunnels that were discovered under it.
Israel has also attacked a large number of military targets: armed Hamas operatives, rocket launcher sites, snipers, anti-tank squads, military headquarters, bases, observation posts, and more. From the beginning of the ground invasion, aerial bombardment and heavy artillery fire have been used to provide backup to Israeli troops on the ground. Experts in international law say these targets are legitimate, as long as the strikes comply with the principle of proportionality.
In response to an enquiry from +972 and Local Call for this article, the IDF Spokesperson stated: “The IDF is committed to international law and acts according to it, and in doing so attacks military targets and does not attack civilians. The terrorist organization Hamas places its operatives and military assets in the heart of the civilian population. Hamas systematically uses the civilian population as a human shield, and conducts combat from civilian buildings, including sensitive sites such as hospitals, mosques, schools, and UN facilities.”
Intelligence sources who spoke to +972 and Local Call similarly claimed that in many cases Hamas “deliberately endangers the civilian population in Gaza and tries to forcefully prevent civilians from evacuating.” Two sources said that Hamas leaders “understand that Israeli harm to civilians gives them legitimacy in fighting.”
At the same time, while it’s hard to imagine now, the idea of dropping a one-ton bomb aimed at killing a Hamas operative yet ending up killing an entire family as “collateral damage” was not always so readily accepted by large swathes of Israeli society. In 2002, for example, the Israeli Air Force bombed the home of Salah Mustafa Muhammad Shehade, then the head of the Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ military wing. The bomb killed him, his wife Eman, his 14-year-old daughter Laila, and 14 other civilians, including 11 children. The killing caused a public uproar in both Israel and the world, and Israel was accused of committing war crimes.
That criticism led to a decision by the Israeli army in 2003 to drop a smaller, quarter-ton bomb on a meeting of top Hamas officials — including the elusive leader of Al-Qassam Brigades, Mohammed Deif — taking place in a residential building in Gaza, despite the fear that it would not be powerful enough to kill them. In his book “To Know Hamas,” veteran Israeli journalist Shlomi Eldar wrote that the decision to use a relatively small bomb was due to the Shehade precedent, and the fear that a one-ton bomb would kill the civilians in the building as well. The attack failed, and the senior military wing officers fled the scene.
In December 2008, in the first major war that Israel waged against Hamas after it seized power in Gaza, Yoav Gallant, who at the time headed the IDF Southern Command, said that for the first time Israel was “hitting the family homes” of senior Hamas officials with the aim of destroying them, but not harming their families. Gallant emphasized that the homes were attacked after the families were warned by a “knock on the roof,” as well as by phone call, after it was clear that Hamas military activity was taking place inside the house.
After 2014’s Protective Edge, during which Israel began to systematically strike family homes from the air, human rights groups like B’Tselem collected testimonies from Palestinians who survived these attacks. The survivors said the homes collapsed in on themselves, glass shards cut the bodies of those inside, the debris “smells of blood,” and people were buried alive.
This deadly policy continues today — thanks in part to the use of destructive weaponry and sophisticated technology like Habsora, but also to a political and security establishment that has loosened the reins on Israel’s military machinery. Fifteen years after insisting that the army was taking pains to minimize civilian harm, Gallant, now Defense Minister, has clearly changed his tune. “We are fighting human animals and we act accordingly,” he said after October 7.
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