How does that compare to other conflicts? Wars differ in nature (ground vs. air, for example), pace, and duration. So let's look at air wars and compare the civilian death rates per strike. So far in Gaza, Israel has hit approximately 1,100 sites. Using the high-end casualty count, that's an average of one civilian death for every 14 to 15 sites struck. In the 1999 Kosovo air war, Human Rights Watch found that NATO had killed approximately 500 civilians in attacks on more than 900 targets. That's more than one death for every two targets hit.
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Israel claims to be doing something much better. Here's how the IDF's spokesmandescribes it:

We phone up our enemies and tell them that we are going to blow up the building, we throw non-explosive munitions, and that is a sign they are supposed to vacate the building. Only once we have seen them vacate the building—and we are talking about [hitting] command and control places and not the terrorists themselves—then we hit.
In other accounts, Israeli briefers have said that they also send text messages and that the final warning shot, known as a "knock on the roof," can be a mortar strike that hits just hard enough to scare everyone out. "According to the procedure," says Ynet, an Israeli news site, "it is only after the IDF makes sure residents have evacuated the premises that the missile that could destroy the house is launched."

In the history of warfare, this kind of systematic warning—direct, specific, double-layered—is unprecedented. It lets the enemy military officer escape in order to avoid killing his family. But how strictly is the IDF adhering to this policy?

In some cases, there's video evidence of targets being warned or knocked. In other cases, Gazans have confirmed that they received calls or warning flares.

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There's photographic evidence of people going on to the roof of a targeted building after a warning. And in the worst mass-fatality incident of the campaign's first 48 hours, witnesses say that after residents had been warned and had left the house—thereby making the IDF think it was empty—neighbors and some family members went back in to "form a human shield." By then, the IDF couldn't stop the missile.

It's not clear how often this has happened or what role Hamas has played. Israel cites a TV interview in which a Hamas spokesman praised the courage of human shields. It also points to a statement from Gaza's interior ministry, which urged Gazans not to "pay attention" to Israel's "communications on the phones of citizens." But praise isn't an order, and the ministry statement may have been referring to a mass robo-calling campaign in which Israel told Gazans to leave their homes in preparation for a ground assault.

If Gazans choose to defy the warnings and go on to their roofs, what right does Israel have to strike them? The IDF claimsit will strike anyway, but it has already blinked. In the case that was video-recorded, "the IDF decided not to bomb the home," says the Israeli news site Arutz Sheva. "In most cases ... Israel will simply refrain from taking action if Israeli forces are aware of the presence of civilians in the vicinity."

Do these factors—the fatality rate, the warnings, the shields—make Israel's conduct acceptable? I'll leave that to you. Either way, we need to cut through the propaganda on both sides, analyze the best information on the ground, and put it in context. In some ways, Israel is raising the standards of what can be expected in warfare.


http://www.businessinsider.com/israel-is-raising-the-moral-standards-of-