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Israel complied with int’l law in Gaza war against Hamas – JINSA
In addition, the report found that despite accusations from human rights groups that Israel violated international law, some Israeli precautions actually exceeded “those implemented in recent US combat operations that we participated in, despite confronting an adversary that often sought to exacerbate that risk deliberately,” the report said.
The authors included about a dozen senior and retired US military officers who traveled to Israel to examine the actions of both sides, and included: Lt.-Gen. Robert Ashley, former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lt.-Gen. John M. Bednarek, former senior defense official in Iraq, Lt.-Col. Geoffrey S. Corn, the former chief international lawyer for US Army Europe and others.
If the IDF was mostly focused on degrading Hamas’s attack capabilities, the Gazan terror group was equally investing resources in a massive disinformation campaign to delegitimize Israel alongside its firing of rockets at Israeli civilians.
IRON DOME interceptors destroy rockets launched from the Gaza Strip toward Israel in the skies over Ashkelon in May. (credit: AMIR COHEN/REUTERS)
Comparing the Israeli experience to potential future challenges which the US may face, the report said: “The ability of an unscrupulous adversary to constrain military operations or even achieve strategic advantage against a much more capable opponent through the use of human shields and disinformation about both facts and law is a particularly concerning harbinger of what the United States might soon face.”
JINSA said that the US “will have to contest such conflicts emphatically, and preemptively, in the information domain as much as in the physical. The US military should train to operate in environments significantly more complex than Gaza – just as densely populated by civilians, but farther afield, with more limited intelligence, no air dominance, and a contested electromagnetic spectrum – while remaining committed to LOAC compliance.”
At the same time, the report said, “the US military must also be clear-eyed about setting realistic expectations for what that compliance will look like in such operations – it might not be feasible to take the same extraordinary but costly precautions Israel employed in Gaza.”
“Investments, together with partners like Israel, in new technologies to counter enemies’ advancing capabilities and enable mitigating risk to civilians will be critical,” it continued.
Getting more specific, the report said that, “the IDF has robust processes in place to ensure legal vetting of proposed targets, specific method of attack, and potential incidental injury and collateral damage. Its operations adhered to LOAC’s mandate to implement all feasible precautionary measures to mitigate risk to the Gazan civilian population.”
“Numerous leaflets were dropped, telephone calls were placed to residents, and text messages were sent to warn Gazan civilians to leave a defined area of operations in advance of airstrikes,” said the report.
JINSA stated that, “minutes preceding the actual attack, small munitions delivered a ‘knock on the roof’ to provide further warning of the impending attack – a tactic first used in 2014 and therefore familiar to the civilian population.”
In addition, “multiple surveillance platforms were dedicated to each target, often for hours, to ensure that civilians evacuated areas of attack. These impressive precautions often came at an operational and tactical cost to the IDF, allowing belligerents to escape, diminishing the tactical advantage of surprise, and reducing the number of other targets that could be monitored or struck,” it said.
Next, the report noted the May war was the “first artificial intelligence (AI) war” in which the IDF employed “AI algorithms and machine learning, paired with intelligence analysts in ‘man-machine teams’ to flag and review potential targets… that were significantly more detailed, accurate, and timely than in 2014.”
The report accepted Israeli estimates that out of 264 Palestinians killed, 37% were combatants and another 15% were believed to be combatants, and noted that no civilians were killed in precision attacks on 20 high rise towers.
Also, the report said that “the IDF utilized thousands of Israeli and US produced PGMs (Precision Guided Missiles), including small laser-guided bombs (SLGB), GBU-39/B small diameter bombs (SDB) and Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) tail kits that convert unguided air-to-ground munitions to PGMs. With these weapons, the IDF could apply its precise and timely intelligence regarding target locations,” to limit civilian casualties.
Tracking the disinformation campaign against the IDF, the report said that the problem started with, “The media and public’s misunderstanding of how LOAC applies to military operations – especially the false assumption that the effect of an attack, and especially the presence of civilian casualties, determine its legality.”
“Coupled with social media’s ability to transmit graphic images rapidly and globally without explanatory context,” the report said Hamas succeeded at making “audiences more receptive to Hamas’s disinformation that Gazan suffering was evidence of Israeli LOAC violations.”
Numerous organizations, including the United Nations, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch – organizations claiming to be experts in the relationship between law and military operations – quickly seemed to accept Hamas’s assertions of unlawful IDF operations.
JINSA accused these groups of misunderstanding or mischaracterizing the principle of distinction “to mean that military objectives cannot be lawful targets whenever they are placed in civilian areas. Meanwhile, the principle of proportionality seems to be interpreted as presenting some quantitative (but unspecified) threshold of civilian casualties or destruction of civilian property above which an attack violates LOAC. Neither of these interpretations is correct.”
Also, the report blamed Israel for only using the IDF spokesperson giving narrow details about specific operations and as its main microphone to the world as opposed to using the Foreign Ministry to educate the world about the larger context.
“On their own, without context and explanation, these facts proved insufficient to align the public perception of the legitimacy of IDF operations with the reality of their LOAC compliance,” said JINSA.
Moreover, the report flagged that Israel’s effectiveness in explaining its narrative was “further decreased by delays and several major missteps, including delayed justification for the IDF’s strike on the al-Jalaa building housing international media in Gaza as well as the perception that the IDF intentionally lied to the media about launching ground operations in Gaza.”
Further, the report stated, “we encountered a lingering resignation among military and civilian leaders in Israel that no improvement in their messaging can overcome the rush to condemnation that appears reserved for Israel alone among all nations… But our review also indicates that even if messaging efforts have marginal impact, ceding the information domain to the enemy is an unacceptable response.”
“To improve communications with international media, organizations and publics, militaries should seek more effective ways to rapidly provide more detailed information to the public,” said the report.
An American-Irish citizen who traveled to Lebanon and Syria in an attempt to join the Hezbollah terrorist organization and fulfill his desire to kill Jews was arrested on Monday for making false statements to FBI agents, the Western District of Pennsylvania US Attorney’s Office announced.
Jack Danaher Molloy, 24, had converted to Shia Islam in February and traveled to Lebanon in August. According to an affidavit, Molloy was in contact with several individuals who sought to help him with his quest to join the terrorist organization.
Molloy had difficulty in enlisting with Hezbollah because he didn’t know Arabic, and the terrorist organization wasn’t recruiting foreigners during the October 7 War with Israel in the wake of intelligence failures like the September pager bomb attacks.
Molloy told an associate that he had been “told very politely that Hezb isn’t recruiting anymore” because “They can’t even trust Lebanese at this point” because of “too many security breaches.”
Contact warned him that his attempts to join might “escalate” to the point of him being suspected of being a Mossad agent.
“There are a lot of divisions you can apply for, but right now, they are not recruiting, they’re not accepting anyone, and due to the high number of Mossad agents and moles, appearing inside, sadly, so it’s gonnatake a while,” one contact told Molloy.
Molloy was also advised that boot camps and recruiting had been disrupted and that when the current “circumstances” were over, it would take three to four months before the group was organized enough to reopen to recruits.
Beginning training at a ‘young age’
An associate explained that Hezbollah operatives started with the organization at a “very young age,” going on to train at several different locations before being asked if they wished to become official members in the Shiite group’s military force. Joining Foreign brigades was difficult, requiring current members to vouch for him.
On October 9 Molloy went to Syria to join Hezbollah or another militia, but was told that the dynamics between armed groups in Syria made it “not very ethical” to join some Syrian resistance factions “due to the things that happened in Syria.”
Around this time, he told his mother that he was considering joining the Russian forces fighting against Ukraine in order to earn money, but he answered in the affirmative when his mother asked if his “master plan” was ” to join Hezbollah and kill Jews.”
On October 14, Molloy left Syria to return to the United States, assured by contacts that he would likely be able to join Hezbollah next year. Molloy landed at Pittsburgh International Airport on October 20, where he was questioned by FBI agents and lied about his intentions to join a US State Department-designated foreign terrorist organization.
Molloy told an associate that he had enrolled with the Iran-based online Al-Mustafa Open University, knowing its connection to Iran Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. According to the affidavit, the Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned the university in 2020 because its branches facilitate IRGC Quds Force recruitment of international students.
Molloy, who had previously joined the American Reserve Officers’ Training Corps for two months, believed that his Irish background informed his hatred of Zionists and respect for Hezbollah.
The Irish and Hezbollah?
In October, he posted on X that “We Irish love Hezbollah, and personally, they were a major influence in me reverting to Islam and moving to Lebanon.”
“To me, I am continuing the fight my great-grandmother fought against the Zionists, but now Islamically,” he said to someone using Google Translate. “I have a very fierce hatred of these Zionists, and I need to fight…I have thought about this every moment of every day since I was 18, for 7 years now.”
Molloy’s computer and phone contained violent jihadist and Nazi images, including some depicting the execution of Jewish stereotypes. In one image, a character marked with a Nazi swastika shot a Jewish stereotype cartoon, and a similar representation of a Jew on his knees with a red inverted triangle above his head was shot execution-style in the back of his head.
One image on Molloy’s device depicted a Nazi SS soldier and a Jihadi with the slogan “one struggle” in English and Arabic. Another picture displayed Hezbollah fighters performing a Roman salute with the fusion of a Nazi and Lebanese flag in the backdrop. On the anniversary of October 7, Molloy created an email account called “k**ekiller696969” and, in 2019, used the address “glassofjuice88.” The latter phrase is a homophone for “Gas the Jews,” and the number “88” is a reference to a neo-Nazi numerical code for “Heil Hitler.”
The US Attorney’s Office said that Molloy faces the possibility of both a sentence of up to eight years in prison or a $250,000 fine.
On Sunday, I returned to The Jerusalem Post after being drafted as an IDF reservist for almost 80 days for my second tour of duty in Gaza since the October 7 Massacre. My anecdotal experience as an infantryman and perspective as a journalist in civilian life has given me a unique perspective on Gaza war issues, familiar and unexplored alike. These ten takeaways from someone who has been in the mud of the battlefield should be considered by policymakers and citizens in which much of the information about the war is second-hand information and hearsay.
1. The IDF is winning, and needs to be allowed to win
Compared to their operations during my first tour at the end of 2023, a sense that Hamas is collapsing has since developed. The terrorist organization once fielded ambush cells that conducted frequent hit-and-run anti-tank missile attacks and ambushes from a wide network of bunkers and tunnels for a guerilla defense in depth strategy.
Almost a year later, Hamas seems unable to operate on a strategic level, even from areas in which its battalions have remained structurally intact or reconstituted from degraded units. This is exemplified by Hamas’ inability to launch targeted reprisals for the death of military leaders, or even attempt traditional attacks on Jewish holidays or the anniversaries of October 7.
By and large, they do not operate at night or the light of day, clinging even closer to the low visibility of dawn and dusk, whereas their operatives would once more openly operate in daylight hours due to being able to escape underground after an attack. It appears that their tunnel networks have been greatly compromised, as they have had to travel along roads and weave between buildings.
Their legitimate operations focus on IED and lone sniper attacks rather than using heavier munitions, but a greater focus has been filming any engagement so that they can edit the footage so they can claim to foreign supporters and Israeli citizens that they have destroyed Israeli vehicles. Stealing humanitarian aid has apparently not been enough for some Hamas battalions, as in one case they have resorted to sending plainclothes operatives to loot food and supplies from abandoned IDF positions. Their mortar bombs fall far less accurate than they once were, and we did not encounter any enemy drone activity.
The Netzarim security corridor seems relatively safe, with paved roads, and outposts enjoying electricity provided by power lines. While many soldiers left Gaza positive about the IDF’s advancements, the path of victory is long and the journey should not be confused with its destination. Many soldiers have mixed their sense of Hamas’s significant degradation with the feeling that the military is being held back from decisive action, entering and leaving areas to allow Hamas to retain territorial control.
2. Gaza has suffered heavy damage
The extent of the damage to infrastructure hasn’t been completely appreciated by the general public, and Israeli and international leaders will need to develop extensive plans to rebuild the territory. Whole neighborhoods have been leveled during direct combat, the search and destruction of tunnels and booby traps, and the establishment of defensible positions.
If buildings have not been damaged by their proximity to explosives or pocked by suppressive fire, they have had their outer walls shaved away to reveal the possible presence of terrorists. Concrete rubble and trash are strewn along wide fields in the Gaza Strip and will need to be collected and moved before some areas are traversable, let alone livable. The IDF Spokespeople will also need to prepare to explain the extensive damage to civilian infrastructure.
3. Gaza was far from an ‘open-air prison’
One of the great shames about the extensive damage to Gazan infrastructure is that it was not the desolate “open-air prison” that it had been advertised as in anti-Israel propaganda.
While there certainly were residents living in desperate conditions, the houses, apartments, and villas that we cleared and took position had a decent and even opulent quality of life. All the homes we saw had televisions, computers, refrigerators, decorations, and food stores in line with an Israeli suburb. Our impression was not one of squalor, but normal conditions.
In rural areas villas and mansions oversaw sweeping vineyards on one side and a view of the ocean on the other, and in urban areas large schools, restaurants and other facilities. The lost potential and degraded conditions in Gaza make Hamas’s decision to attack Israel and weaponize their territory rather than develop what they held a shame all the greater.
4. Hamas weaponized Gaza
Much has been said about Hamas’s use of civilians as shields to deter IDF operations — A detained civilian told our troops that he was unable to travel from the North to South along humanitarian corridors because he had to bribe Hamas operatives who were bent on keeping civilians around them as cover. Yet the civilians are just one aspect of Hamas turning Gaza into a weapon to try to destroy Israel.
Tunnel networks are not just placed around or under civilian objects, terrorist infrastructure is integrated into civilian infrastructure in a way that makes the two indistinguishable. Civilian homes are turned into lookout and reconnaissance outposts, with members of families hired by terrorist organizations to provide intelligence, as was exemplified by the capture of spotters captured by a neighboring battalion. Armories are hidden within houses, to be accessed by plainclothes terrorists when they have the need to shed the veneer of being civilians.
Tunnel entrances can be found in the first floor of apartment buildings, not just in their backyards. Other homes are booby-trapped, leading to widespread suspicion of each home as being laced with explosives. With Gaza being weaponized in such a fashion, it has led military units to take precautions and actions that damage buildings and homes so that they can stay alive.
5. The IDF is not conducting a genocide
The purpose of our operations were not geared toward the elimination of Gazan civilians. There were never orders to kill civilians wantonly, and there were debates on if we had enough information to use deadly force and when it was legitimate to open fire. Civilians were allowed to pass by our positions along humanitarian corridors unmolested. These elements would not be found among a force that is devoted to mass murder or genocide. Civilian casualties are tragic, and unfortunately, they always occur in war, which is why such conflict should be avoided in the first place.
6. The IDF needs to restore discipline
While IDF soldiers are not engaged in mass war crimes or genocide, there is inappropriate and even criminal behavior. Other soldiers have shared with me stories of when they have seen looting, and I had to stop someone who had been temporarily attached to our battalion from taking a necklace from a house. While my battalion did not bring our cellphones into Gaza until our last week, when we were moved back to a rearguard outpost, we have seen the widespread use of phones by other neighboring units.
This is all the more shocking not just because posting on social media can be used by enemies to geo-locate positions and gather intelligence, but the violent machismo and inappropriate fooling around in videos and photographs discredits the moral legitimacy of the military and creates an overly relaxed and familiar environment that can get people killed. While journalists have to answer to the IDF censor, it felt to many of us that the IDF has done little to crack down on soldiers who are acting as poor spokespeople and even documenting what appear to be crimes.
Even small issues such as unsanctioned edgy uniform patches lead to a breakdown in discipline, which may lead to even greater behavior unbecoming of the IDF’s ethics. IDF leadership seems unwilling to want to deal with the overly involved families and loss of manpower that comes with disciplining inappropriate behavior.
7. Trust has been eroded in military leadership
The failures of the October 7 Massacre have led to a distrust of military brass among many soldiers and reservists that I have spoken to. It has become a common refrain among the ranks to not trust anyone above the rank of a battalion commander.
High-ranking officers are viewed critically as out-of-touch “October 6” officers who care more about the advancement of their careers through checking task boxes on their clipboards rather than actually changing the reality on the ground.
Reservists and mandatory soldiers alike are results-oriented, and if they feel that officers are more focused on satisfying their superiors rather than the realities on the ground, their orders will have less validity. Military brass, like the political leadership, need to prove to their men that their sacrifices for victory will not be in vain.
8. Reservists are frustrated with domestic squabbles
As news broke that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had fired Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, fierce debate broke out in the company about the legitimacy of the move. While Netanyahu’s camp claimed that there were professional differences over strategy that could not be overcome, and that the prosecution of the war required Gallant’s firing, too much suspicion and bad blood had been developed about political plays within the current government.
Many believe that the move was done to save the coalition because ultra-orthodox parties threatened to leave because of Gallant’s work towards drafting haredi youth. Such suspicions have been informed by some politicians continuing to pursue their prior political interests, such as major judicial reform proponents calling to renew the process.
While Israeli soldiers are fighting and dying, they don’t feel that politicians are with them and take the war seriously. This distrust extends to the opposition as well — with many of the same actors that were involved in the anti-reform camp pushing for hostage deals at varying cost, many soldiers have expressed to me that they can’t help to wonder if they are motivated by the good of the nation or their own political agendas.
9. The IDF needs more soldiers
As the war and debate about who has drafted has continued, reservists have become increasingly frustrated that some demographic groups are benefitting from the blood and toil of reservists while not contributing to the endeavor themselves. My battalion deputy commander and company commander have become involved in movements calling for a more equal draft.
The need for an increased draft comes as current reservists face multiple tours and are pushed off retirement. Our battalion saw a drop off in reenlistment as some reservists had to deal with crumbling families, businesses, and health. Many reservists came despite these challenges — the sacrifices that they have made are beyond just the risk of death and injury.
10. Soldiers deserve victory
The sacrifices that were made by reservists and mandatory soldiers were made under the implicit promise that they would be in exchange for victory. The state has to consider in its policies and strategic decisions not just the feelings of hostage families and residents who have to return home but also those who have willingly given everything for them and the state.
Reservists want resolution to the problems that led to October 7, they don’t want this war to become yet another round in ongoing conflict. While we will continue to fight for Israel, we don’t want to have to come back to Gaza and Lebanon in a few years time — for not just our sake, but also for that of all Israelis and Palestinians.
Three soldiers became the latest targets of anti-Israel organizations seeking to doxx and level legal challenges against Israeli servicemen abroad.
The Belgium-based Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF) called for the arrest of three Nahal Brigade soldiers for alleged war crimes after they entered the Netherlands on Thursday. The March 30 Movement branch submitted a complaint the same day, charging that the Granite battalion soldiers had been involved in operations in which Gazan homes were burned and the Rafah crossing was damaged without any military necessity.
The disruption of the Rafah crossing constricted the flow of aid in an act of “weaponized famine,” the group said.
The three soldiers were named on social media, and their pictures were shared by the foundation. The doxxing came days after the group filed a complaint to the International Criminal Court against a soldier and called for his arrest while he was visiting the United Arab Emirates.
Many of the foundation’s accusations do not list specific actions by soldiers but place them within Gaza or the West Bank during operations.
Other allegations and doxxing, such as those against an Israeli reservist officer who had to flee Cyprus in mid-November, are based on video and photographs posted by the soldiers on social media. Ynet reported that the officer coordinated his departure from the country with the Israeli Foreign Ministry after the HRF called on Cypriot officials to arrest him over two videos in which he allegedly burned and called to destroy Gazan civilian objects.
Following the November 21 ICC issuance of arrest warrants against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant, the foundation called on the international body to also issue warrants against 1,000 IDF soldiers listed in an October 8 dossier it filed to the ICC.
The HRF claimed that it had gathered 8,000 pieces of documentation detailing the destruction of infrastructure, occupation of civilian homes, looting, participating in a blockade of Gaza, and targeting civilians. The documentation reportedly included soldiers boasting “about their war crimes on social media, sharing photos and videos of their participation in the destruction and occupation of Palestinian homes and properties.”
Some of the soldiers had dual citizenship, including 12 French, 12 American, four Canadian, three British, and two Dutch citizens.
More than one group targeting Israeli soldiers
The HRF is not the only group doxxing IDF soldiers who have participated in the war.
The Israel Genocide Tracker X/Twitter account, which has over 160,000 followers, shares the names and pictures of soldiers who had allegedly been in Gaza. Many of those identified by the account are dual-nationals, such as an American-Israeli Golani Reconnaissance battalion sniper doxxed on Saturday.
“We firmly believe that every soldier who entered Gaza is complicit in the genocide,” the group said in a social media post last Monday, defending their operations from those arguing that the account’s posts interfered in ongoing legal and journalistic investigations.
“We will soon release comprehensive lists of soldiers’ names to support international legal actions. We are already collaborating with various human rights organizations that rely on our data to pursue justice.”
Telegram channels published a file allegedly containing the personal information of several thousand soldiers and security officials last Sunday.
The viability of the legal cases against these soldiers is unclear, according to legal experts, with the main objective being the intimidation of IDF soldiers.
Universal jurisdiction
NGO Monitor legal adviser Anne Herzberg said that it is difficult to know if individual cases are actionable without knowing their specifics, but there was concern that courts in countries with weak judicial systems and inadequate due process could be exploited, and warrants could be issued based on “flimsy evidence” and “no advance notice.”
“Anti-Israel NGOs have pushed universal jurisdiction cases against Israeli military and government officials for years as a complement to their lobbying for ICC proceedings,” said Herzberg.
“The shift by these groups to the targeting of thousands of lower-ranking dual-national Israelis has two purposes. First, these cases are about generating negative PR – to internationally tarnish the IDF by delegitimizing and criminalizing IDF service. The second purpose is to deter dual nationals from serving in the IDF for fear they might be subject to criminal proceedings if they return to their countries of origin.
“This second purpose constitutes a military and national security threat and should be taken very seriously by both Israeli and Western officials. It should come as no surprise that several of these NGOs have links to the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, or other terror organizations.”
International Legal Forum CEO Arsen Ostrovsky said that these lawfare campaigns were “entirely without merit and no more than political stunts” but noted that “given the changing political climate and growing hostility against Israel in some parts of Europe, there is no guarantee that some countries will not entertain this charade in the future.”
“As a response to this growing threat, Israel should consider adopting a US-style American Service-Members’ Protection Act, which authorizes the use of all means necessary to secure the release of American soldiers and persons taken captive by, on behalf, or at the request of the International Criminal Court, in this case being equally applicable if IDF soldiers (or former soldiers) were detained on the instructions of the ICC and/or individual countries,” said Ostrovsky.
“The United States, which is currently putting a devastating sanctions framework [together] against the ICC over their issuing of arrest warrants against Prime Minister Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, should sanction any country that not only seeks to apply the ICC warrants but takes individual actions to arrest IDF soldiers.
“And lastly, Israel should also make it a priority to sign bilateral immunity agreements with other countries, acknowledging the independence of Israel’s judicial system and undertaking not to arrest any IDF soldiers, whether current or former, thereby allowing Israelis the ability to travel freely, without fear of arrest.”
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