In the broader debate about whether the IDF perpetrated war crimes in Gaza or did its best, however imperfectly, to avoid killing civilians despite being up against Hamas, which turned the enclave into one giant human shield, a key piece is humanitarian zones.
The IDF has made the very simple and straightforward argument that, throughout the war, it has given advance warning of where it was about to invade and where civilians could move to avoid harm.
How could the IDF be committing war crimes if it sent millions of warnings to civilians to evacuate by flyer, phone, text, and social media – warnings which often allowed Hamas terrorists to escape to safety under the guise of mass civilian exoduses?
Also, the IDF has said that throughout the war, it improved significantly in its ability to avoid mistakes: attacks on terrorists, which also harmed civilians unintentionally.
A highly detailed and specific BBC analysis published on Wednesday put all of this into question.
The BBC's findings
According to the report, which is based on Hamas Health Ministry and local Gaza reporting data, more than 550 Palestinians have been killed in humanitarian zones in 97 separate strikes since May 6, 2024, the day the invasion of Rafah started and when most Palestinians still living in cities or villages were moved to the zones.
It noted that there had been 22 strikes in humanitarian zones in January alone, a rise in attacks in those zones since October, and that the boundaries of the zones have changed around a dizzying 20 times.
Moreover, the BBC said that seven of the documented strikes are reported to have killed 20 or more people each, with the most deadly one on July 13 resulting in more than 90 deaths. The target during the July 13 attack in question was Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif.
The IDF only acknowledged air strikes in 28 of the 97 cases while not explicitly denying that there might be more cases.
Military sources told The Jerusalem Post that they did not maintain data about specific attacks in humanitarian zones, especially since, as the BBC pointed out, these zones continually evolved.
The IDF said it did not even have numbers for how many terrorists versus civilians were killed in the strike on Deif despite prior wide reporting that drone observation was used heavily in that attack.
An exhaustive count of all IDF public messages that have gone out since May 6 and referred to its attacking civilian locations that Hamas or Islamic Jihad was using to shield itself was conducted by the Post, which found 77 such attacks between late June and mid-January and another half dozen or so attacks from early May to late June, with the IDF in all cases saying it sought to avoid or reduce civilian harm.
It should be noted that some of the attacks were likely outside of humanitarian areas but involving civilian locations, such as schools.
The findings showed that the IDF said 18 terrorists were killed in one such attack in late October, 19 terrorists were killed in one such attack on August 10, and some dozens of terrorists may have been killed in one such attack on August 7.
The Post found that a detailed May 27 probe by the IDF found that Hamas reports of harm to civilians were highly exaggerated, though there were no exact counter numbers.
In addition, the IDF claimed that on May 11 and July 25, Hamas or Islamic Jihad rocket misfires killed Palestinian civilians.
Collectively, the findings seem to generally confirm the volume of IDF air strikes in humanitarian areas reported by the BBC but do place some doubt on the number of civilians claimed killed by the report.
Where Israel continues to do itself a disservice is that it has not even shown up on the field to dispute the numbers and conclusions of the now hundreds of global media reports stating it has committed war crimes as a fact based on extensive data that they have collected.
The fact that 15 months into the war – despite a huge staff being run by former Maj.-Gen. (res.) Yoav Har-Even reviewing the war crimes allegations along with an increased staff at the IDF legal division – not a single broad report addressing specific cases has been put out to present Israel’s case is stunning.
Generic reports released much earlier in the war, which do not address specific cases, or the half dozen or so reports released, which each address one unusual event, still leave hundreds of cases or more unaddressed, amounting to probably 99% of the controversies being discussed.
Every time another extensive and well-researched report comes out from the global media – this time from the BBC, but in the recent past by the New York Times, CNN, and The Washington Post – and the IDF fails to respond with detailed counter data or at least partial admissions and partial denials, the accusations take on the appearance of established fact.
These facts are not merely real-time 24- to 48-hour news reports, which the IDF could try to dismiss more easily as rushing to conclusions, but labor-intensive work over many months, which take on much more the air of seasoned and well-vetted history.
Moreover, normally valid excuses, such as the complexity of the battlefield takes time to collect evidence, the Israeli office for conducting autopsies is delaying cases because it is overwhelmed, and there are just so many new cases coming in all the time from the ongoing war, simply do not hold water for this long when discussing cases which are half-a-year-old, let alone 15 months old.
And when the IDF knows a new well-researched report is coming out against it with a specific focus, the fact that it does not at least use that opportunity to suddenly mobilize the relevant data – whether it is normally collected or not – leaves only the military and Israel to blame for choosing not to show up.
At press time, it was completely unclear whether the BBC’s reports were true or not because the IDF continues to drag its heels, likely leaving even many fair-minded readers to conclude that the reports are true.
All of this occurs as Israel faces war crimes charges before the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court, and numerous individual countries worldwide.
By the time it decides to show up, the world may not even notice.