Israel has done more to prevent civilian casualties in Gaza than any other known army in the world has, John Spencer, who is both chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point and a retired US military officer, argued in an extensive thread posted on X (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday.
In the thread, Spencer provided multiple examples of precautions that the IDF takes that he argued other armies do not, at least not to the same extent, or even at all. One of the most well-recognized instances of this that he mentioned is the way in which the IDF implements various methods of warning before commencing with an assault against Hamas.
IMO Israel has implemented more measure to prevent civilian casualties in urban warfare than any other military in the history of war. This includes many measure the U.S. has (or has not) taken in wars & battles but also many measures no military in the world has ever taken.
— John Spencer (@SpencerGuard) January 30, 2024
He referred to this in his numerous replies to commentators on his thread. “In some cases, the IDF will call, text, and drop small munitions on the roof of a building,” he explained.
He even addressed some measures that the IDF took at the cost of its tactical advantage to save lives. The army will “provide [a] warning and evacuate urban areas/cities before the full combined air and ground attack begins. While the tactic does alert the enemy defender and provide them the military advantage to prepare further, it is one of the best ways to prevent civilian casualties,” he said.
He even addressed some measures that the IDF took at the cost of its tactical advantage to save human lives.
Hamas maximizes harm to civilians in Gaza by hiding behind them.The IDF minimizes harm to civilians in Gaza by dropping endless flyers urging them to leave harms way. pic.twitter.com/zLXmQDj5TT
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) October 13, 2023
The thread addresses common criticisms of the IDF's methodology
Spencer then wrote about the unique complexities of warfare in the Gaza Strip, saying, “No military in modern history has faced 30,000 defenders embedded in more than seven cities, using human shields and hundreds of miles of underground networks purposely built under civilian sites while holding hundreds of hostages and launching over 12,000 rockets at the attacking military’s civilians’ areas.”
One prevailing criticism against Israel’s warfare tactics has been that Israel may be using explosives inhumanly. That is, some are questioning whether the IDF is employing precision-guided missiles (PCMs), or unguided ones, and what the size of the payload of this is, vs. the tactical advantage gained.
Spencer had much to say regarding these issues in the thread as well.
On the matter of PCMs, he said, “Despite the ignorance of reporting on ratios of PCMs to non-PCMs, Israel has used many types of PCMs to include lower collateral damage munitions/small diameter bombs, and technologies and tactics that increase the accuracy of non-PCMs (dive bombing), [which thereby] limit civilian casualties, [owning to] (sat imagery, AI, cell phone presence.)”
Spencer concluded his post with the following statement: “Again, Israel has implemented more measures to prevent civilian casualties than any other military in the history of war. While some have argued Israel could have waited longer, used different munitions, or not conducted the war at all – [they] all [failed] to acknowledge the context of Israel’s war… [they are overlooking] the hostages, rockets, tunnels, existential threat of Hamas, and more.”
Most significantly, he determined, those condemning Israel for its military strategies are overlooking all that Israel has done to protect human lives.
This is not the first time Spencer has remarked on the IDF’s performance and tactics. He has done so multiple times in the past.