Thanks for the response, especially including specific examples.
My motivation for asking these questions, is to anticipate that which will be obvious and of greatest humanitarian concern in hindsight, say in a year.
This is a scenario that I think is moderately probable, that I’m worried about:
Part 1, most certain: Israeli airstrikes continue, unclear if they’re still using their knocking system much. Due in part to deliberate Hamas mixing of combatants and non-combatants, numbers of civilian casualties rise over time.
Part 2, less certain: Israel continues to withhold or significantly restrict electricity and/or food/medical supplies. Civilian casualties rise over time.
Part 3, less certain: Israel proceeds with an invasion/occupation of Gaza. Goals could be restricted to killing known members of Hamas, destroying Hamas materiel, rescuing hostages, or they could be expanded to some kind of occupation or even resettlement objectives.
With part 2 and 3, the possibilities for non-combatant casualties seem largely open ended. The results (if these things happen) will depend not just on Israel’s conduct, but also the reaction from Hamas and the general Palestinian population.
I think that those who are able to consider the situation dispassionately, both inside and outside of Israel, should be clear that the maximally aggressive Israeli response would be tragic and catastrophic. The question, therefore, is how much restraint can be shown; and to a lesser extent, if the response can do any good. As a backdrop to all this, I also consider that it’s as yet uncertain whether, among other considerations, there could be more attacks against Israel yet to come in the near term.
I understand that you might not have much to say about all this since it’s largely speculation, just thought I’d throw in my thoughts about the situation.
Part 1: I agree, it seems they don’t use the Roofknock Protocol for now, and that will be the main source of civilian casualties. It’s a tragedy, but not actually a problem by law of war (see Jay Donde’s post).
Part 2: I generally agree. I don’t think actual food shortage will be a problem (5%), electricity might (10-33%, very uncertain) but I don’t think will cause many casualties by itself. We live in a warm country, and hospitals (and Hamas operatives) have emergency reserves.
Part 3: I agree, and think it depends a lot on Egyptian refugee policy.
Additional possibility is a second front in Lebanon, which adds orders of magnitude more missiles, which are also stronger and more accurate. Israeli civilian casualties will quickly rise, not to mention the possibility of them trying similar tactics to those Hamas tried last Saturday (even though that will probably be less effective, since Israel is on high alert).
Of course such scenario will also deeply impact Lebanon and its citizens.
As for your later point, I think Israel is trying to topple Hamas’s regime, one way or another. The region around Gaza is populated by 70,000 people, who will not stay there if there’s a risk for attacks like the last one. I am not sure whether it will be done by completely occupying the strip, a siege, or something completely different, but I don’t think we’ll return to status quo unless Israel tries and fails to do that.
About the Lebanon situation, I’m much more sure that it will make Palestinian casualties rise than that it will make Israeli casualties rise. My impression (from public information) is that Israel is capable of destroying both Hammas and Hizballah pretty quickly if it is willing to play dirty enough. And my impression about Israel is that it care about ethics, but not enough to allow an existential threat to exist. So in such situation I expect Israel to be super aggressive against Gaza in order to end it quickly and focus on Lebanon.
Thanks for the response, especially including specific examples.
My motivation for asking these questions, is to anticipate that which will be obvious and of greatest humanitarian concern in hindsight, say in a year.
This is a scenario that I think is moderately probable, that I’m worried about:
Part 1, most certain: Israeli airstrikes continue, unclear if they’re still using their knocking system much. Due in part to deliberate Hamas mixing of combatants and non-combatants, numbers of civilian casualties rise over time.
Part 2, less certain: Israel continues to withhold or significantly restrict electricity and/or food/medical supplies. Civilian casualties rise over time.
Part 3, less certain: Israel proceeds with an invasion/occupation of Gaza. Goals could be restricted to killing known members of Hamas, destroying Hamas materiel, rescuing hostages, or they could be expanded to some kind of occupation or even resettlement objectives.
With part 2 and 3, the possibilities for non-combatant casualties seem largely open ended. The results (if these things happen) will depend not just on Israel’s conduct, but also the reaction from Hamas and the general Palestinian population.
I think that those who are able to consider the situation dispassionately, both inside and outside of Israel, should be clear that the maximally aggressive Israeli response would be tragic and catastrophic. The question, therefore, is how much restraint can be shown; and to a lesser extent, if the response can do any good. As a backdrop to all this, I also consider that it’s as yet uncertain whether, among other considerations, there could be more attacks against Israel yet to come in the near term.
I understand that you might not have much to say about all this since it’s largely speculation, just thought I’d throw in my thoughts about the situation.
Part 1: I agree, it seems they don’t use the Roofknock Protocol for now, and that will be the main source of civilian casualties. It’s a tragedy, but not actually a problem by law of war (see Jay Donde’s post).
Part 2: I generally agree. I don’t think actual food shortage will be a problem (5%), electricity might (10-33%, very uncertain) but I don’t think will cause many casualties by itself. We live in a warm country, and hospitals (and Hamas operatives) have emergency reserves.
Part 3: I agree, and think it depends a lot on Egyptian refugee policy.
Additional possibility is a second front in Lebanon, which adds orders of magnitude more missiles, which are also stronger and more accurate. Israeli civilian casualties will quickly rise, not to mention the possibility of them trying similar tactics to those Hamas tried last Saturday (even though that will probably be less effective, since Israel is on high alert).
Of course such scenario will also deeply impact Lebanon and its citizens.
As for your later point, I think Israel is trying to topple Hamas’s regime, one way or another. The region around Gaza is populated by 70,000 people, who will not stay there if there’s a risk for attacks like the last one. I am not sure whether it will be done by completely occupying the strip, a siege, or something completely different, but I don’t think we’ll return to status quo unless Israel tries and fails to do that.
About the Lebanon situation, I’m much more sure that it will make Palestinian casualties rise than that it will make Israeli casualties rise. My impression (from public information) is that Israel is capable of destroying both Hammas and Hizballah pretty quickly if it is willing to play dirty enough. And my impression about Israel is that it care about ethics, but not enough to allow an existential threat to exist. So in such situation I expect Israel to be super aggressive against Gaza in order to end it quickly and focus on Lebanon.
I agree it will also affect Gaza. Disagree about the effect on Israeli casualties.