When civilians pay the ultimate price in war 

The world is watching the return of Israeli hostages from the war in Gaza that began on Oct. 7, when Hamas carried out brutal strikes against innocent people at a music festival and in their homes. 

Israel has regained a bit of the strategic narrative; it is hard to watch young children emerge from captivity and not wish Hamas had never unleashed itself against them. But public opinion is fickle. As soon as the fighting resumes, the question of the scale of Palestinian deaths and the humanitarian conditions on the ground in Gaza will likely swing the pendulum back to the plight of those civilians caught in the crossfire. 

Israel can avoid losing the public diplomacy edge if it can remember this advice: “Keep things in proportion.”  

At the center of the humanitarian situation in Gaza is the complex concept of “proportionality.” In war, proportionality is a critical standard given the inevitable loss of civilian life as bullets fly, bombs fall and rockets rain down on places and people. 

According to the International Red Cross, proportionality “seeks to limit damage caused by military operations by requiring that the effects of the means and methods of warfare used must not be disproportionate to the military advantage sought.”  

“Precise comparisons of war dead are impossible,” states The New York Times, “but conflict casualty experts have been taken aback at just how many people have been reported killed in Gaza—most of them women and children—and how rapidly.”  

Although casualty figures from the Ministry of Health in Gaza are hard to fact-check, the numbers from their sources have crossed 14,000. Whatever the number, it is unacceptable in the eyes of many countries. 

There is growing pressure, especially from the United States, to reduce civilian deaths. The Washington Post writes, “Administration officials say Israel’s counterattack against Hamas has been too severe, too costly in civilian casualties, and lacking a coherent endgame, but they are unable to exert significant influence on America’s closest ally in the Middle East to change its course.” 

So, what are the ways nations can limit the number of innocent people harmed or killed during conflict? Is it even possible, in a situation where the opposition has mixed civilians and soldiers, to curtail death? 

The Ceasefire Centre for Civilian Rights in an international project to develop civilian-led monitoring of violations of international humanitarian law or human rights, and they will be working to determine what has occurred in Gaza and what can be done to reduce civilian casualties. As they remind us “civilians are not ‘collateral damage’ and civilian harm is not an unavoidable consequence of conflict.” 

Stopping airstrikes is, of course, the single best way to curtail death. 

For Israel, the recent military pause under the truce agreement spared Palestinian lives, although it may also have given Hamas more time to plan and re-group, which would undermine the mission of destroying the terrorist infrastructure. 

Another approach is using more strategic targeting and better intelligence to ensure that militants are the only ones being hit — a tall order in a place where civilians and extremists are grouped together. 

“Although Israeli officials insist that each strike is subject to legal approval, experts say the rules of engagement, which are classified appear to include a higher threshold for civilian casualties than in previous rounds of fighting,” says The Washington Post. 

How Israel is selecting its targets remains a national security internal decision, but experts say transparency is important. 

Another military recommendation is the use of smaller bombs to reduce wide damage. Israel said in the first week of the war that it had dropped 6,000 bombs, which is more than the United States dropped on Afghanistan in a year.  

Israel uses large weapons in dense urban streets, including U.S.-made 2,000-pound bombs that can flatten an apartment complex — much larger in size than the U.S. itself used in Iraq and Syria. 

Less discussed but equally important is how governments take responsibility for killing innocents in war. Owning up to what targets inadvertently hit civilians is hard for any government, but the United States ultimately took responsibility for that tragedy in Afghanistan. It was an important moment for public diplomacy and transparency at a time when many believed — and continue to argue — that American foreign policy is overly militarized. 

War is ugly. “At least 108 million people were killed in wars in the twentieth century,” according to The New York Times. “Estimates for the total number killed in wars throughout all of human history range from 150 million to 1 billion.” 

New technologies like unmanned drones, artificial intelligence and robotics help with the decline in the absolute number of battle deaths, states the Uppsala Conflict Data Program, which tracks conflict, but they can never reduce deaths to zero. 

Ultimately, civilians pay a high price for conflict. Policymakers must take this into account when authorizing the use of force. Not only is there death, injury and trauma, but destruction and damage to infrastructure for everyone in the affected areas.  

One wishes that all parties to conflict could find a way to build sustainable peace to reduce the ultimate dilemma of warfare. Hardening hearts and minds rarely lead to good outcomes. 

Tara D. Sonenshine is a former U.S. undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs and teaches at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.