The short-sighted Israeli army
Two areas where the idf has fallen short are its responsibilities as an occupying power and its duty to minimise civilian deaths. Some 1.7m people have been displaced; many lack adequate food, water or medicine. For months, a few hundred lorry-loads of food have been getting into Gaza, far below the 500 or so a day that is the minimum needed. Outraged, some countries have resorted to dangerous, costly air drops.
The civilian death toll is also of grave concern. To many people, tens of thousands of deaths and injuries and the destruction of so much of Gaza could never be justified. Israeli officials retort that war is harsh and the ratio of civilian deaths to combatants is about 2:1, a figure that roughly matches independent studies and is similar to Iraq when an American-led coalition struck Islamic State in Mosul in 2016-17.
It is not too late to change course. Yet Israel’s politicians—former idf officers among them—want bombs and bullets to substitute for a political vision of the war’s end. Without a plan for peace, Israel will end up as an occupier or repeatedly striking Gaza. Either way, it will pay a high price militarily, economically and diplomatically.