Israel has long sought peace with her neighbours. Unfortunately, you cannot make peace with a neighbour that wants to wipe you off the face of the earth. Hamas is one such neighbour, and as discussed in a previous article, they are a terrorist organisation without an ounce of compassion or moral decency. Everything Hamas does brings misery and suffering, both to Israel and to their own people. Israel on the other hand has gone to great lengths to prevent civilian deaths on both sides.

It should be noted that this war was started by Hamas. The war would be over if Hamas put down their weapons, surrendered, and freed the Israeli hostages. Hamas is responsible for this war.

Israel is at war with Hamas, not the Palestinian people. Therefore, it is going to great lengths to try and help Palestinian civilians. No other army on earth would warn its enemy where it would be attacking next, but this is exactly what Israel has been doing. Israel sent mass texts to civilians in Gaza to warn them of incoming strikes. Additionally, the IDF has dropped tens-of-thousands of leaflets on civilian populations urging them to evacuate or seek shelter. Israel has called off strikes on terrorists because they’ve identified civilians in the vicinity. In fact, instead of dropping bombs on certain targets, Israel has sent its own troops into harm’s way to carry out operations to avoid unnecessary deaths.

Whilst war is brutal and terrible, the situation in Gaza would be so much worse if Israel was not doing everything it could to protect civilian life.

The statistics speak for themselves. Israel’s military has one of the lowest civilians to combatant death ratios in modern times. In fact, the United Nations estimates that between 7 and 9 civilians are killed for every combatant, with the higher number being used when explosives are dropped on civilian areas. In the case of the Israel-Hamas war, between 1 to 1.5 civilians are killed for every combatant, far lower than any other military. For reference, NATO forces had a ratio of 4.5 civilians killed to every combatant in Iraq.

Israel’s Iron Dome missile defence system is another example of how Israel protects civilians on both sides. Israel spends tens-of-thousands of pounds per launch to shoot Hamas rockets out of the sky. They do this to save lives in Israel, but it also saves lives in Gaza. If Israel had not developed the Iron Dome, many more Israelis would have died from rocket attacks, and as a result, Israel would have been forced to strike Hamas harder, resulting in more deaths in Gaza. Instead, because Israelis were relatively safe while Iron Dome protects them, it gives the IDF time to make a measured and precise response.

Israel is also one of the few militaries in the world that is providing humanitarian assistance to the civilian population of its enemy. A common tactic of war is the cut off the supply routes of your enemy and to starve the civilian population. Israel is not doing this. It is providing hundreds of aid trucks per day into Gaza. Additionally, COGAT reports that bakeries in Gaza are being funded and supplied by Israel and are currently producing more than 2.6 million pita breads per day for Gaza’s roughly 2 million population.

Whilst Israel is providing aid into Gaza, the United Nations is failing to pick up the slack and deliver aid to those needed as they keep getting attacked and hijacked by Hamas. Israel is providing humanitarian aid to Gazans while Hamas is hindering the aid.

Hamas does not even see the Palestinian civilian population as its responsibility. They claim that because Palestinians are ‘refugees’ they are the responsibility of the United Nations and not Hamas.

Think about the contrast. Israel has done everything to minimise civilian casualties on both sides while Hamas has done everything to maximise civilian casualties on both sides. More than this, Israel is providing humanitarian aid to its enemy because it cares more for Palestinian civilians than Hamas does.

Unfortunately, the world does not see things from this perspective. Israel is constantly demonised in the media as being the problem in this conflict. Israel is under constant pressure to be more moral than it is currently being, whilst already proving itself to be doing more for its enemies than any of the countries accusing Israel have done in the past wars they have fought themselves.

According to the IHRA definition of antisemitism, holding Israel to a higher standard than any other nation is antisemitic. And it is highly likely that antisemitism has a part to play in all of this.

Israel is not perfect. War is not pretty. But Israel does not want to kill Palestinian civilians. It simply wants to get its hostages back and it wants to stop Hamas from ever being able to murder Jews ever again.

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