Hamas, stop using human shields - opinion

On Saturday, July 13, 2024, there were actually two assassination attempts within hours of each other. Both resulted in collateral damage and made international headlines even though they are considerably different in nature.

The first was the attempted assassination of former president and GOP newly officially chosen presidential candidate, Donald J. Trump. A gunman opened fire from a nearby rooftop at Trump’s Pennsylvania rally, piercing the former president’s ear and subsequently murdering one event attendee.

The second assassination was Israel’s targeted attack of two senior Hamas members in Khan Yunis. The attempted “neutralization” of the two terrorists resulted in 90 civilian deaths in the vicinity, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

At the time of writing, both assassination attempts are receiving similar reactions. The assault on the former president is roundly being condemned, as is the Israeli strike on Khan Yunis. And if one were to only focus on collateral damage, then Israel is more at fault when compared to the American assassin. But, as is clear from these two examples, accidental harm cannot be the sole barometer of wrong and right.

This point is clear when it comes to political violence. One would be hard-pressed to find even the most ardent of anti-Trumpers who would argue killing the former president as morally permissible. But almost all Americans understand that the way to defeat a political rival is at the ballot box and not by means of violence. This general understanding is not due to the innocent civilian who was tragically caught in the crossfire but rather because the former president, an innocent man, was marked for murder.

But when people try to attribute right and wrong in the Israel/Gaza conflict, they do the exact opposite – focus on the casualties and ignore the target. In this most recent incident, even if the casualty numbers are correct, the strike Israel carried out was not a war crime. This is because it’s almost impossible to distinguish between civilians and combatants in Gaza. Israel had instructed the civilian population to leave the Khan Yunis region almost two weeks before the strike was carried out.

Strategic human shields

Complicating the matter, Hamas uses civilians as human shields and forces them to stay in these areas. And most importantly, the ratio of combatant to civilian casualties in this strike was only slightly higher than permitted by NATO. For two high level Hamas members, an acceptable civilian casualty figure would have been 60 people. When the dust settles, the final tally will likely be close to that, if not lower.

Any loss of innocent life is tragic. No one hopes for such outcomes – and if Israel could wave a magic wand and achieve the war goals without them, of course it would. But what’s missing from the discourse about this war is a focus on the intention and reason for such strikes.

Unlike Trump’s assassin, Israel is not targeting innocents.

Its goal is to eliminate recognized terrorists who have carried out deadly attacks on its soil and pledge to do so again and again until the Jewish people are no more. To solely focus on the ancillary facts of either case is to completely miss that which demands moral outcry.

The writer is an Efrat-based rabbi, wedding officiant, and mohel who performs conversions in Israel and abroad, and founder of Magen HaBrit, an organization protecting the practice of brit milah.