Yonah Jeremy Bob
Jerusalem Post, Dec. 25, 2023
“… what Hamas did in Gaza could serve as an unprecedented case study, one of a terror group investing ten years and 40,000 fighters to transform an entire area into one extended terror playground.”
No one has ever fought a war with an enemy so deeply entrenched in their civilian population, who so systematically abuses international law – as the IDF faces with Hamas, a senior IDF legal official told The Jerusalem Post.
Fighting Hamas now, when it has topped its prior use of civilians and civilian locations as human shields, is “incredibly complex” and “a new kind of case study” for the challenge of winning a war while limiting harm to civilians.
Part of the IDF’s international law department’s ability to stay on top of the vast number of legal questions regularly coming up is a jump in staff during wartime.
The operational legal advisers branch is available 24/7 and includes about three dozen full-time legal advisers, plus over 100 reservists – a significant growth from where it was a decade ago, even during wartime.
If, at one point, international law legal advisers remained at headquarters and then moved closer to the frontlines at Northern, Southern, and Central Command headquarters, they now also serve at division-level headquarters, closer to the action and real-time developments.
These legal advisers also work closely with the Coordinator for Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), the Defense Ministry, the Foreign Ministry, and the Justice Ministry.
A common refrain from critics of Israel is that the IDF is killing far more civilians in this war than it did in prior rounds of conflict, which proves it is committing war crimes.
Why is the civilian casualty rate in Gaza so high?
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