General Discussion

In Gaza Israel is fighting Hamas militants in densely populated cities, and has set rules of engagement that allow its forces to kill large numbers of civilians in strikes on even low-ranking militants. “In Gaza we are talking about a campaign of targeted assassinations, really, rather than battles, and they are carried out with no concern for civilians,” Kaldor said.

The ratio of civilians among the dead in Gaza was more comparable to recent wars in Sudan, Yemen, Uganda and Syria, where much of the violence had been directed against civilians, she said. “These are wars where the armed groups tend to avoid battle. They don’t want to fight each other, they want to control territory and they do that by killing civilians,.

“Maybe that is the same with Israel, and this is a model of war [in Gaza] that is about dominating a population and controlling land. Maybe the objective always was forced displacement.”