How Did Israelis Perform Genocide in Gaza: As Israel loosened its own bombing rules, civilians paid a heavy price

The cease-fire in Gaza has stopped, at least for the moment, one of the most intense military bombardments of the 21st century, the seeds of which were born just hours after the Hamas-led assault on Israel that set off the war.

Reeling from the immensity of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack, a New York Times investigation found, Israel officials quickly weakened safeguards intended to reduce the scale of civilian harm that it had used in earlier conflicts.

The result was a campaign that killed more than 46,000 people, Gazan health officials have reported, many of them civilians. Some 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, and about 250 people kidnapped, Israeli officials said.

In loosening the reins on its military so that it could strike more targets in Gaza, Israel severely undermined the system of safeguards that had once existed.

The Times disclosed that in an order issued shortly after the Hamas attack, Israeli military leaders raised the threshold for acceptable civilian harm in each pre-emptive strike, as well for each day. They also expanded the list of approved targets in Gaza.

The air force raced through much of the so-called target bank list within days, officers and officials said, putting intelligence officers under intense pressure to find new targets. The military was moving so quickly, The Times found, that was not able to properly vet targets.

Israel often used a simplistic statistical model to assess the risk of civilian harm that yielded unrealistic assessments of how many people were near a target. And hours could pass between when an officer vetted a target and when the air force launched a strike — meaning that strikes often relied on outdated intelligence.

Israel also relied on large, imprecise bombs, and it significantly reduced its use of ”roof knocks” — warnings that gave people in a targeted building time to get out." [1]

1.  As Israel loosened its own bombing rules, civilians paid a heavy price.  New York Times (Online) New York Times Company. Jan 19, 2025.