tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/israeli-defence-force-11808/articlesIsraeli Defence Force – The Conversation2018-07-03T21:15:49Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/993412018-07-03T21:15:49Z2018-07-03T21:15:49ZGaza’s fire kites and balloon bombs ignite tensions<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226033/original/file-20180703-116135-skzk5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In this June 2018 photo, an Israeli tractor works to extinguish a fire started by a kite with an incendiary device launched from Gaza in a wheat field near the Israel/Gaza border. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source"> (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Many Canadians and Americans are enjoying the fireworks in the sky this week. But Israelis are instead worrying about other kinds of aerial fireworks. </p>
<p>Since April, <a href="https://theconversation.com/stop-telling-palestinians-to-be-resilient-the-rest-of-the-world-has-failed-them-96587">Palestinian protesters</a> have been flying fire-carrying kites and balloons across the Gaza-Israel border to set fields and forests ablaze. They’ve also launched Gaza’s first significant rocket attacks since 2014.</p>
<p>These events are reminders that Israel and Gaza are only <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/05/israel-hamas-gaza-palestine-netanyahu/561524/">one incident away from war</a>. If full-blown conflict were to erupt, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/jogss/ogx028">recent research</a> suggests Israel’s defences would minimize its casualties. However, Israel could not completely stop the attacks or their financial drain.</p>
<h2>Kites versus quadcopters</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Liberman-vows-revenge-against-kite-attacks-559132">weaponized kites</a> resemble children’s toys floating in the sky. But they carry <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIU2jCPu_wE">burning charcoal or oil-soaked rags</a> across the Israel-Gaza border to ignite fires wherever they land.</p>
<p>These unplayful toys are increasingly sophisticated. Some now include time fuses that delay ignition until they cross the border. A few carry explosives instead of fire. <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-21/flaming-condoms-from-gaza-newest-threat-to-southern-israel">Helium-filled balloons and condoms</a> are replacing some kites because they fly farther into Israel.</p>
<p>By mid-June, protesters had launched more than 600 kites and balloons, igniting <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/17-fires-blaze-in-israeli-south-burning-kites-from-gaza-suspected-1.6177703">412 crop and forest fires</a>. No injuries have been reported. But <a href="http://www.israelhayom.com/2018/06/24/%e2%80%8e%e2%80%8e36-fires-blaze-through-israels-border-towns-as-kite-terrorism-rages/">more than 3,200 hectares</a> (32 square kilometres) of <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/MAGAZINE-a-drone-s-view-of-the-fires-around-gaza-1.6192575">farmland and forests</a> have burned. Agricultural damage is estimated at around US$2 million and firefighting expenses at US$550,000.</p>
<p>The Israeli Defense Forces’ (IDF) initial response followed the toyland theme. Drone-hobbyist soldiers started ramming the kites with radio-controlled quadcopters.</p>
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<p>They can intercept kites <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/disputing-news-report-colonel-declares-idfs-anti-kite-drones-a-success/">within 40 seconds of detection</a> and <a href="http://www.israelhayom.com/2018/07/02/palestinian-terrorists-breach-gaza-border-torch-idf-%e2%80%8epost-%e2%80%8e/">are downing two thirds</a> of them. But many still get through.</p>
<h2>Rockets and airstrikes</h2>
<p>In late May, the Palestinians abruptly enhanced their attacks by firing <a href="https://www.shabak.gov.il/SiteCollectionDocuments/Monthly%20Summary%20EN/Monthly%20Summary/Monthly%20Summary%20-%20May%202018.pdf">188 rockets and mortar shells</a> into Israel. That barrage came as a shock, as rocket firing had been rare since 2014. Only 75 flew into Israel from 2015-2017.</p>
<p>The IDF response has also grown stronger. In June, its military drones began <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Five-fires-in-the-Gaza-Envelope-terror-kites-resume-559553">firing warning shots</a> near the people making kites. When that failed to deter them, it launched <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/15-fires-in-Gaza-border-communities-IDF-strikes-targets-in-Gaza-in-response-560124">airstrikes on Hamas military facilities</a> in Gaza.</p>
<p>On June 19, 2018 we saw an ominous <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/after-sleepless-night-of-rockets-southern-israeli-schools-reopen-as-usual/">new escalation sequence</a>. Kites and balloons ignited 20 fires in Israel that day. The IDF retaliated that evening by bombing three targets in Gaza. Militants there then launched 45 rockets and mortar shells, six of which landed in Israeli towns. The IDF finally bombed another 20 targets.</p>
<h2>Simple weapons, costly impacts</h2>
<p>Both rockets and kites damage property. During Israel’s Operation Pillar of Defense against Gaza in 2012, the direct damage per rocket fired at Israel averaged around US$9,800. It was about US$8,400 during 2014’s Operation Protective Edge.</p>
<p>By comparison, kites each inflict only about US$4,200 in direct losses. But they cost very little to make.</p>
<p>Kite fires mostly worry farmers, foresters and firefighters near Gaza. But rocket attacks hurt tourism and business activity across Israel. That leads to much larger indirect costs. The country’s economy lost about US$30 million per day during Pillar of Defense and US$24 million daily during Protective Edge.</p>
<p>Also, the kites have not provoked (so far) an expensive Israeli military operation. Pillar of Defense’s airstrikes and rocket interceptions cost the country US$54 million daily. Protective Edge added ground assaults and cost US$59 million daily.</p>
<p>Put another way, each rocket and mortar shell Gaza fired during Pillar of Defense resulted in about US$490,000 of damage, lost business and military expenses in Israel. That soared to US$750,000 each during Protective Edge. Those are big numbers for such small weapons.</p>
<h2>Declining casualties</h2>
<p>By contrast, Israel’s casualties per rocket were small and declining. In 2012 one Israeli civilian died on average for every 271 rockets fired. By 2014 there was one death per 1,484 rockets. The average number of rockets needed to injure one Israeli similarly jumped from 5.5 to 35. </p>
<p>The rockets themselves did not become less lethal. Rather, Israel’s defences improved. <a href="https://theconversation.com/as-missiles-fly-a-look-at-israels-iron-dome-interceptor-94959">Iron Dome batteries intercepted more rockets</a>, while sirens and shelters protected more civilians. Otherwise, Israeli rocket injuries and deaths during the 2014 conflict could have been 2,200 instead of 85.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/israeli-rocket-experience-shows-bomb-shelters-matter-as-much-as-interceptors-96402">Israeli rocket experience shows bomb shelters matter as much as interceptors</a>
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<p>Israel spent heavily to achieve that. It has the <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/military-expenditure-capita-which-countries-spend-most-defense-person-978501?slide=50">second highest per capita military spending</a> in the world. (U.S. military aid helps: <a href="https://fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33222.pdf">US$3.8 billion this year</a>.) It expended billions of dollars developing, deploying and reloading its Iron Dome rocket interceptors. (<a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2016/09/14/fact-sheet-memorandum-understanding-reached-israel">U.S. funding covered US$1.3 billion</a>.) It spent another half billion dollars upgrading civil defences. </p>
<p>In effect, the country’s defence investments replace human losses with financial ones. The falling casualties and rising expenses make the financial side of aerial attacks relatively more important. Much like the kites, rockets now make Israel bleed mostly cash instead of blood. </p>
<p>Protective Edge, for example, cost the country some US$3.5 billion. But the conflict involved just five rocket and mortar deaths over 42 days. (That’s still five too many. But <a href="http://www.cbs.gov.il/shnaton68/st24_20.pdf">traffic accidents in 2014</a> killed six times as many Israelis over similar periods.)</p>
<h2>Smouldering frustrations</h2>
<p>Overall, Israel’s high-tech defences protect its people but not its finances. They reduce the impact of Gaza’s low-tech aerial assaults but can’t completely stop them.</p>
<p>Ironically, Israel’s defensive success hinders its diplomacy. Its low civilian casualties make it difficult to get international support when its F-16s bomb Gaza. Similar controversy may arise if it starts <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/shoot-palestinian-kite-flyers-sight-says-israeli-minister-ahead-gaza-protests-960713">shooting Palestinian kite-flyers</a>.</p>
<p>Gaza faces its <a href="https://theconversation.com/gaza-now-has-a-toxic-biosphere-of-war-that-no-one-can-escape-95397">own problems</a>. Its kites and balloons inflict visible damage and inflame tensions. But they risk dangerous escalation. Its rockets could inflict enough casualties to provoke massive Israeli retaliation and expenditures. But they can’t truly threaten Israel’s livelihood or existence.</p>
<p>All this means more frustration for the already frustration-laden Israel-Gaza standoff.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/99341/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael J. Armstrong does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Incendiary kites and balloons have joined artillery rockets in Gaza’s arsenal. They bleed Israel’s finances more than its people.Michael J. Armstrong, Associate professor of operations research, Goodman School of Business, Brock UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/976572018-06-06T14:03:44Z2018-06-06T14:03:44ZPlans to ban photos of Israeli soldiers will stain the country’s reputation even further<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221990/original/file-20180606-137301-1km18gq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=205%2C397%2C3812%2C2439&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/idfonline/5201914594/sizes/o/">IDF/Flickr.</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>That evening, the sun sank swiftly. The tank which blocked our way was briefly silhouetted by the last sharp rays, before it disappeared into the gloom. It was still there, but the detail of track and gun turret could no longer be seen. Eventually, whoever was giving the orders decided we could go. The material we had filmed would not make it onto that night’s news. </p>
<p>It was October 2003. I was working as a BBC correspondent in the Gaza Strip. I was trying to return from Rafah, at the territory’s southern edge, to my office in Gaza City. A major Israeli military operation, code named “Root Canal”, was underway. The army strictly controlled access to the area. My colleagues and I had got into Rafah without too much trouble, but had waited several hours to get out. By the time we did, our material was late. </p>
<p>That hardly bothered the soldiers who held us up. They weren’t wondering which bulletins we were missing. They probably weren’t too bothered that they were stopping us getting our report out, either. Israeli army operations in Gaza often involve civilian deaths. In such a <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/middle_east/03/v3_israel_palestinians/maps/html/population_settlements.stm">densely populated strip of land</a>, where the people are not permitted to leave, it can hardly be otherwise. </p>
<p>Operation Root Canal was targeting tunnels running under Gaza’s border with Egypt. That day, we had heard the stories of Rafah residents whose houses had been destroyed because they were suspected of concealing tunnel entrances, or of being used as firing positions – or just because they were unlucky enough to be too close to Israeli army posts, at a time when the Israeli army were going on the offensive against armed Palestinian groups. </p>
<p>Whatever the reasons given for the operation, the consequences for local residents would not exactly look good on the international news. No army wants that kind of coverage.</p>
<h2>Bad press</h2>
<p>Now, apparently troubled by recent incidents of soldiers caught on camera breaking the law – Israeli soldier Elor Azaria’s shooting to death a wounded, prone, Palestinian attacker being perhaps <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aL-h4s0H4Fw">the highest profile example</a> – one Israeli politician wants to place strict legal limits on the filming and photographing of soldiers. </p>
<p>Robert Ilatov is a member of parliament for the right-wing nationalist party Yisrael Beitenu (which translates as “Israel, our home”). His plan has already been criticised by journalists’ organisations: “It constitutes a serious breach of the freedom of the press, as it precisely criminalises the work of journalists”, in the view of the <a href="http://www.ifj.org/nc/en/news-single-view/category/reports/article/israel-ifj-condemns-bill-to-ban-filming-soldiers-on-duty/">International Federation of Journalists</a>. </p>
<p>The Israeli–Palestinian conflict has been the focus of extensive international reporting since the middle of the last century. “Every single word is scrutinised”, said Crispian Balmer, then Jerusalem bureau chief for Reuters, of the challenges of covering the conflict, in an interview for my book <a href="https://www.palgrave.com/gb/book/9781137395122">Headlines from the Holy Land</a>. </p>
<p>The bloodshed in Syria may have drawn media and diplomatic resources away from Israel, Gaza and the West Bank in recent years. But the Israeli army’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/stop-telling-palestinians-to-be-resilient-the-rest-of-the-world-has-failed-them-96587">killing of Palestinian protesters</a> at the Gaza border fence last month shows that the conflict can still grab the world’s attention. Even in our image-saturated world, pictures seem to retain a particular power – easily shared as they are on social media. This power is presumably what concerns Ilatov.</p>
<h2>Bad reputation</h2>
<p>The opposition to his plans is not confined to international organisations. Israel’s leading liberal newspaper, Ha'aretz, <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/editorial/the-bill-to-protect-elor-azaria-1.6117404">has condemned the bill</a> as “dangerous”, noting that “anyone who breaks the law is subject to five years in prison”. Yet censorship on reporting the activities of armies is nothing new. Its rules are often characterised by vagueness. </p>
<p>British correspondents during World War I were forbidden to publish any, “false statements or utterances ‘likely to cause disaffection to His Majesty’,” as Susan Carruthers put it in her book <a href="https://www.macmillanihe.com/page/detail/?sf1=barcode&st1=9780230345355">The Media at War</a>. The bill before the Israeli parliament echoes that lack of clarity, warning civillians and journalists alike against “undermining the morale of Israel’s soldiers and residents”.</p>
<p>Although they are rarely required to conform to it, any international journalist granted an Israeli Government Press Card has to agree to “<a href="https://forms.gov.il/globaldata/getsequence/getHtmlForm.aspx?formType=gpocardeng@pmo.gov.il#">accept the censorship declaration</a>”. This new legislation would be more extensive, covering not just the foreign media, but anyone at all. </p>
<p>“Being a spectator of calamities taking place in another country is a quintessential modern experience”, wrote Susan Sontag in <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/54582/regarding-the-pain-of-others/">Regarding the Pain of Others</a>. Social media have given us the chance to see ever more of our world. As with all new media, governments and armies seek to influence the messages they bring.</p>
<p>Today, leaders of the world’s most powerful countries <a href="https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/04/25/press-freedom-index-trump-attacks/549000002/">feel at liberty to sneer</a> at any journalists who question them. Adding extra layers of censorship to that scorn will hardly help audiences to understand this complex and unstable age. Besides, legislation has limited power to stop what technology has started. While military victories may enhance a country’s reputation, the manner in which they are achieved may also tarnish it. Criminalising journalism definitely does.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/97657/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Rodgers does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A new bill proposes to ban reporters and civilians alike from photographing or videoing Israeli troops.James Rodgers, Senior Lecturer in Journalism, City, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/964372018-05-22T14:21:07Z2018-05-22T14:21:07ZIran and Israel don’t want to fight a war – can they avoid one?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219801/original/file-20180521-14978-g6129j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Too close for comfort?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/flags-israel-iran-painted-on-cracked-381326236?src=ZEwwNIi_HpBRQc3YQJg-Fw-1-6">Danielo via Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>After Donald Trump announced that the US would unilaterally pull back from the historic 2015 Iranian nuclear deal, Iranian forces in Syria fired rockets into the <a href="https://theconversation.com/qanda-why-is-the-golan-heights-so-important-96440">Israeli-occupied Golan Heights</a> for the first time. The Israelis retaliated by targeting Iranian forces and positions in Syria. That attack, which killed 23 people, was the biggest Israeli assault on Iranian positions in Syria since the civil war there started in 2011. </p>
<p>For a moment, it looked like two of the Middle East’s major political and military players to the verge of a full-scale military conflict. An Israeli-Iranian war could throw the Middle East into one of its most destructive clashes in modern history, one that could polarise the world’s powers, dragging in the US, a reliable ally of Israel, and Russia, Syria’s strongest ally and hence Iran’s strategic ally. And yet, neither has so far chosen to escalate further. Why?</p>
<p>For its part, Iran knows that its capacity to strike back is limited. But more than that, the two countries’ history and military development makes an explosive conflict unlikely.</p>
<p>While Israel has openly clashed with its Arab neighbours before – notably <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-39960461">Egypt, Jordan and Syria</a> – it has never engaged in a direct military showdown with Iran. In fact, it’s easy to forget now that before Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran and Israel enjoyed a close relationship. They were the US’s two main Middle Eastern allies, and Iranian oil was delivered to Israel during the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. Things only changed when the Iranian Shah was ousted in 1979; after that, the revolution’s spiritual leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, proclaimed Israel a “foe of Islam” and cut off all ties with it.</p>
<p>But then came the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-88. This gruelling conflict had a huge impact on Iran’s military doctrine, and the experience of it underpins the country’s geopolitical and national security concerns to this day. The reality of war with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq compelled the Iranian government to prioritise a more defensive foreign policy; where it participates in other conflicts, it usually prefers to do so via proxies rather than by direct military action.</p>
<p>As a result, to the extent Israel considers Iran a major existential threat today, it’s particularly worried about Iranian involvement in other Middle Eastern conflicts. It has more than once fought Iran’s ally Hezbollah in Lebanon, <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-israels-second-lebanon-war-remains-a-resounding-failure-1.5407519">most recently in 2006</a>. And while the protracted conflict in Yemen, for example, is in many ways a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia, Iranian-backed forces could use Yemeni territory to strike Israeli targets.</p>
<p>But even if a conflict erupted on one of these fronts, there’d be another calculation to factor in: the two countries’ very different military assets.</p>
<h2>Treading carefully</h2>
<p>The bulk of Iran’s arms stockpile is domestically developed and manufactured, its own-brand rockets and missiles tested in the field mostly by Hezbollah. But in recent years, Iran has also been procuring weapons and technical expertise from nations antagonistic toward the West: <a href="http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/iran-and-china-are-strengthening-their-military-ties">China</a>, <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2016/11/iran-and-russia-negotiating-10-billion-arms-deal/">Russia</a>, and possibly (in nuclear form) <a href="https://theconversation.com/will-north-korea-sell-its-nuclear-technology-83562">North Korea</a>. </p>
<p>Israel’s main strength is its exceptional military power. Its weapons systems include the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4a_ie0J0hU">Iron Dome</a> and <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-to-deploy-davids-sling-in-april-completing-missile-defense-shield/">David’s Sling</a> missile defence shields, extremely precise defence tools that can pulverise <a href="https://theconversation.com/as-missiles-fly-a-look-at-israels-iron-dome-interceptor-94959">perhaps more than 90%</a> of hostile missiles in mid-air. </p>
<p>Israel also commands air power unrivalled in the Middle East; it recently took possession of the US-manufactured F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which it is <a href="http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/why-israels-stealth-f-35i-truly-one-kind-22942">augmenting with its own technology</a>. On top of all this, in 2016, the US agreed to increase its military aid to Israel to US$3.8 billion a year until 2028. </p>
<p>And yet, Israel too is less than confident about the consequences of an conflict with Iran. However formidable its strategic and technological edge, it’s still unable to fully mend political and diplomatic fences with many of its Arab neighbours. It lives in hostile surroundings, constantly vulnerable to attack on almost all fronts. A major war with another heavily armed power is the last thing it needs.</p>
<h2>At arm’s length</h2>
<p>One advantage Iran does have is its array of proxies and non-state allies, which allow it to project hard power far closer to Israel than it would want to send regular forces. It has a valuable ally in Hamas, which controls Gaza; in Lebanon, Hezbollah could be prepared to assist if necessary. It could also exploit Sunni/Shia splits across the Middle East to secure the support of Shia volunteer armies. And since Saddam Hussein’s fall, Iran has been hugely influential in Iraq, which is struggling to establish a political order that can accommodate Shia, Kurds, and Sunnis.</p>
<p>Yet even with all this influence at its disposal, Iran would clearly prefer not to end up escalating a military conflict with Israel. Aside from the military implications, to do so would squander what moral and diplomatic support it’s gathered since the US’s withdrawal from the nuclear deal.</p>
<p>So for now, both sides are being cautious. Israel’s recent airstrikes targeted raid on military installations, not individuals – an acknowledgement that a heavy casualties might put Iran under pressure to retaliate. Meanwhile, Iran’s domestic debate on whether and how to respond is still rumbling, with progressives insisting the nuclear deal must be safeguarded while their hawkish countrymen would prefer a more confrontational stance. The government has yet to decide which road to take.</p>
<p>But whatever happens in the immediate future, Israel and Iran remain bitter foes, both heavily armed and tied up in a mess of geopolitical interests. Were a war to break out between them, they would gravely damage each other, but neither is likely to rise as the ultimate victor. That both seem to be fully aware of this reality is perhaps the most important thing standing on the way of what could be a true catastrophe.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/96437/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Annie Waqar does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The last thing the Middle East needs is another open conflict between two massive military powers. Fortunately, they both seem to agree.Annie Waqar, Lecturer, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of WestminsterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/956042018-05-21T08:36:24Z2018-05-21T08:36:24ZIs it time for Israel to reveal the truth about its chemical weapons?<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/syria-strikes-violated-international-law-are-the-rules-of-foreign-intervention-changing-95184">multilateral attack</a> on Bashar al-Assad’s chemical weapons facilities in Syria after a lethal gas attack in East Ghouta is already fading from memory, but the question it poses remains: how can the spread of chemical weapons across the Middle East be controlled? And answering that question demands scrutiny of the region’s most powerful and yet most opaque military power: Israel.</p>
<p>Israel’s chemical and biological weapons programme is shrouded in even greater secrecy than its notoriously opaque nuclear programme. Both the weapons and the secrecy around them are born of the same strategic imperative, namely to limit existential threats to the Israeli state.</p>
<p>The programme was initiated under Israel’s first prime minister, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/David-Ben-Gurion">David Ben-Gurion</a>, who authorised it only reluctantly. Both he and subsequent leaders were wary of introducing such weapons into the Arab-Israeli conflict, fearing they might trigger a <a href="https://www.nonproliferation.org/wp-content/uploads/npr/83cohen.pdf">regional arms race</a>. Nonetheless, even prior to the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Israel initiated research into unconventional warfare through the <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=2zMjWaTqkTsC&pg=PA184&lpg=PA184&dq=%22HEMED+BEIT%22&source=bl&ots=IM3z1m7s6R&sig=TcwuFE7fkDMhm701haSg6vy9D18&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjZ2sr7nYrbAhXqK8AKHcGIB38Q6AEwA3oFCAEQlAE#v=onepage&q=%22HEMED%20BEIT%22&f=false">HEMED BEIT</a> unit, forefather of the government-controlled <a href="http://www.iibr.gov.il/">Israel Institute for Biological Research</a> (IIBR).</p>
<p>In 2013, after the last set of international efforts to rid Syria of chemical weapons, <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/09/10/exclusive-does-israel-have-chemical-weapons-too/">Foreign Policy magazine</a> published a set of CIA documents from 1983 that revealed evidence Israel had pursued a chemical weapons programme. Suddenly, attention was again focused on the IIBR – long suspected of being the research centre behind the Israeli programme. </p>
<p>Now, one of the foremost experts on Israel’s nuclear policy and strategy, <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-israel-must-sign-the-chemical-weapons-convention-1.6009076">Professor Avner Cohen</a>, has seized the opportunity to reiterate that Israel should ratify the <a href="https://www.opcw.org/chemical-weapons-convention/">Chemical Weapons Convention</a>, which it signed in 1992. Since Israel has never put the treaty into effect, the exact nature of the weapons it has developed and possibly still possesses remains the subject of international speculation.</p>
<h2>Self-defence and deterrence</h2>
<p>As Cohen explains, the 1983 CIA documents likely evidence the remnant of a programme developed in the 1950s and 1960s. Around that time, Egypt developed chemical weapons and tested them during the <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/cbwprolif">Yemeni civil war</a>. Anticipating Egypt’s plans as early as 1955, Ben Gurion <a href="http://www.nti.org/media/pdfs/israel_chemical.pdf?_=1316466791">sought</a> an “additional cheap non-conventional capability” that could be operationalised if hostilities with Egypt escalated. This capability was probably upgraded and maintained with assistance from France, whose Beni Ounif chemical weapons testing range in the Algerian Sahara was <a href="http://www.nti.org/learn/countries/israel/chemical/">visited by Israeli scientists</a> in the 1960s.</p>
<p>It seems the deterrent effect may have worked in the turbulent years that followed. Despite Israel’s preparations for chemical assault, experts have <a href="https://www.nonproliferation.org/wp-content/uploads/npr/shoham53.pdf">suggested</a> that Egypt refrained from using chemical weapons against Israel in the 1967 Six Day War because Egypt “feared Israeli retaliation in-kind”. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219205/original/file-20180516-155569-cv22dn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219205/original/file-20180516-155569-cv22dn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219205/original/file-20180516-155569-cv22dn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219205/original/file-20180516-155569-cv22dn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219205/original/file-20180516-155569-cv22dn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219205/original/file-20180516-155569-cv22dn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/219205/original/file-20180516-155569-cv22dn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">David Ben Gurion, a reluctant founder of Israel’s chemical weapons programme .</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/93/David_Ben-Gurion%2C_Bestanddeelnr_255-4213.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Although Israel acceded to the 1925 Geneva Weapons Protocol on February 29, 1969, alongside other countries with chemical stockpiles at the time such as the US, Cohen writes that the contents of its arsenal were <a href="https://www.nonproliferation.org/wp-content/uploads/npr/83cohen.pdf">considered</a> unsavoury but “legitimate retaliatory weapons”. Egypt long retained an <a href="http://www.nti.org/analysis/articles/weapons-mass-destruction-middle-east/">advanced chemical weapons programme</a>; it provided WMD to Syria in the early 1970s and technological assistance to Iraq in the late 70s and 80s. Saddam’s Iraq also threatened Israel with <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1990/04/03/world/iraq-chief-boasting-of-poison-gas-warns-of-disaster-if-israelis-strike.html">chemically armed ballistic missile attacks</a> during the First Gulf War. In this climate, there was little incentive for Israel to forgo its chemical weapons capability. </p>
<p>While Prime Minister <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Yitzhak-Rabin">Yitzhak Rabin</a> tried to end Israel’s chemical ambiguity by signing the Chemical Weapons Convention, the geopolitical realities of the size of neighbouring chemical weapons arsenals meant the Israeli establishment still believed it needed an equivalent capacity to serve as a deterrent. </p>
<p>The general consensus today is that while there’s <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Magnus_Normark/publication/265142724_Israel_and_WMD_Incentives_and_Capabilities/links/5502a8e10cf24cee39fcb8da/Israel-and-WMD-Incentives-and-Capabilities.pdf">little evidence</a> that Israel maintains a chemical weapons stockpile, it retains “breakout capacity” – that is, it could readily mobilise its significant scientific and technological knowledge to restart its programme.</p>
<h2>A new world</h2>
<p>Given its <a href="http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/israels-military-dominates-the-middle-east-1-reason-air-24001">superiority in conventional weaponry</a> and nuclear capability, it seems unlikely that Israel would deploy chemical weapons if it were attacked. However, as surrounding nations repeatedly cite this weapons capability as the reason they <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2014_01-02/In-the-Middle-East-Get-Rid-of-Chemical-Weapons-First">retain their own chemical weapons</a>, the strategic value of an Israeli arsenal – current or potential – is clearly dubious.</p>
<p>The policy of ambiguity also deprives Israel of badly needed international goodwill. As Cohen <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-israel-must-sign-the-chemical-weapons-convention-1.6009076">highlights</a>, had Israel ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention, it would have been able to participate in the recent strikes on Assad’s weapons facilities and be seen to defend the international norm that these weapons are beyond the pale.</p>
<p>Globally, there are <a href="https://www.economist.com/special-report/2018/01/25/the-future-of-war">fundamental changes</a> to the nature of war and international security. Weapons of mass destruction are giving way to weapons of mass disruption, such as cyberattacks; conventional weapons are being transformed by semi- and fully autonomous weapons. The whole notion of deterrence is being challenged, and so is the military role of high technology.</p>
<p>In some ways, Israel is more than ready for this. It continues to live up to Ben Gurion’s <a href="http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/books/244487/how-israel-went-nuclear-shimon-peres">vision</a> that “science could compensate for what nature had denied”, rapidly developing capacity in <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israeli-army-to-trade-llamas-for-robots-1.5492577">robotic technologies</a>, <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/army-beefs-up-cyber-defense-unit-as-it-gives-up-idea-of-unified-cyber-command/">cybersecurity</a> and <a href="http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/israel-is-becoming-an-artificial-intelligence-powerhouse-2/">artificial intelligence</a>. If this really is the path to security dominance in the 21st century, Israel may no longer have a need to maintain the rumours of limited and less efficient chemical weapons, and would do well to just put it all out in the open.</p>
<p>Perhaps the regional and domestic situation will at some point settle down sufficiently that Israel and its neighbours can start talking about making the Middle East a WMD-free zone. But until then, the question of whether Israel’s policy of ambiguity is more of a hindrance than a deterrent remains open.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95604/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Melanie Garson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A decades-long policy of ambiguity means that Israel’s chemical arsenal remains the subject of speculation.Melanie Garson, Teaching Fellow in Conflict Resolution and International Security, UCLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/638892016-09-08T08:28:02Z2016-09-08T08:28:02ZWhy ratifying the Chemical Weapons Convention is in Israel’s best interest<p>When the time came to commemorate the <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-century-after-wwi-gas-attacks-scientists-must-unite-against-chemical-weapons-40521">100th anniversary of the first major use of chemical weapons</a>, it seemed there was at last a real chance of ridding the world of all chemical weapons in the very near future. </p>
<p>Longtime pariah Myanmar had just <a href="https://www.opcw.org/news/article/myanmar-joins-chemical-weapons-convention/">signed and ratified</a> the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), which commits countries to the supervised destruction of all stockpiles of chemical weapons. Almost all countries had already joined it; since then, authoritarian <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/angola-chemicalweapons-idUSL5N11R2TD20150921">Angola</a> has signed – and five-year-old South Sudan will apparently follow soon. That leaves only two states as yet unwilling to sign: North Korea and Egypt.</p>
<p>But there’s another exception: Israel, which has signed the convention but is refusing to ratify it. </p>
<p>In a recent <a href="http://www.euchems.eu/president-israeli-chemical-society-publishes-open-letter-state-president-urging-ratification-chemical-weapons-convention/">open letter</a> to the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Chemical Society criticises the illogicality of Israel’s position and urges Netanyahu to ratify the Convention.</p>
<p>At the root of today’s rather absurd situation is a strange impasse. Israel says it will only ratify when Egypt does; Egypt, on the other hand, has promised to join the CWC only if Israel approves the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which would end Israel’s well-known <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/10/questioning-israel-nuclear-ambiguity-policy-2013102114618348364.html">policy of ambiguity</a> about its nuclear capability.</p>
<p>The logic here does not bear scrutiny. Egypt’s comparison with nuclear weapons is facile – chemical weapons are not used as a deterrent and, whatever Israel’s chemical weapons capabilities may be, they simply do not have the same function as its nuclear ones. After all, North Korea aside, the world’s other nuclear powers have all ratified the convention.</p>
<p>Equally, any chemical weapons Israel has are potentially a risk to its own existence. An aggressive first use of chemical weapons against anyone would effectively give carte blanche for weapons of mass destruction to be used in turn against Israel, many of whose neighbours – among them countries such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/assad-may-be-using-sarin-gas-and-the-world-is-staying-on-the-sidelines-60290">Syria</a> – would surely appreciate such an open surrender of what little moral authority can be claimed here.</p>
<p>Israel’s consistent refusal to ratify the convention has allowed Egypt to drag it into an embarrassing bind. It effectively endorses Egypt’s baseless premise that nuclear weapons and chemical warfare are in the same category.</p>
<h2>High time</h2>
<p>Besides the lives devastated by the use of chemical weapons and the appalling suffering caused by those who die and by survivors, countries which have chemical weapons necessarily need chemists to work on them. That is a direct contradiction of the <a href="https://www.opcw.org/special-sections/science-technology/the-hague-ethical-guidelines/">Hague Ethical Guidelines</a>, which are designed to promote responsible scientific conduct:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Teachers, chemical practitioners and policymakers should … promote the peaceful applications of chemicals and work to prevent any misuse of chemicals, scientific knowledge, tools and technologies, and any harmful or unethical developments in research and innovation.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>As one of us has <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-century-after-wwi-gas-attacks-scientists-must-unite-against-chemical-weapons-40521">written before</a>, it is incumbent on all chemists worldwide to denounce chemical weapons and refuse to do any work on them besides control and deactivation.</p>
<p>This is already underway. Together with the large community of chemists around the world, Israeli chemists and chemical engineers want to work together to remove the curse of chemical weapons from the face of the Earth. But without the Israeli state’s assent, this effort can only do so much. It would be in Israel’s best interests to independently ratify the CWC, and soon. All indications are that Egypt would quickly join the CWC as well – after all, it’s hard to see why it would want to remain on the wrong side of the fence with only North Korea for company.</p>
<p>Some readers may think that Syria still has chemical weapons. However, all Syria’s stockpiles of chemical weapons were officially destroyed after their use in 2012. What is happening there now is that barrels of chlorine, which are essential for water purification, are being thrown from helicopters. Those in charge of these stocks must ensure that they are kept under secure conditions and only used for water purification.</p>
<p>Chemical weapons have no place in a civilised society. They have little to no use as a tactical deterrent, and their effects are indiscriminate and appalling. We have a unique opportunity to rid the world of this scourge, and we’re so close to doing so. It’s high time Israel joined the rest of the world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/63889/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Cole-Hamilton is affiliated with the UK Liberal Democratic Party
He consults for Sasol.
He is President of the European Association for Chemical and Molecular Sciences (EuCheMS)
He is Past-President of the Royal Society of Chemistry Da;ton Division covering Inorganic Chemistry
He is a memeber of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Eductaion Committee
He is a Trustee of the Wilkinson Charitable Trust</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ehud Keinan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Very few countries remain outside the world’s chemical weapons control regime. Why would Israel want to keep company with North Korea?David Cole-Hamilton, Emeritus Professor of Chemistry, University of St AndrewsEhud Keinan, Benno Gitter & Ilana Ben-Ami Professor of Chemistry, Technion - Israel Institute of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/316702014-09-15T10:55:25Z2014-09-15T10:55:25ZI refuse to serve – the lonely conscience of Israel’s refuseniks<p>In 1988, I was in Kathmandu in Nepal when I found out that war was raging in the occupied territories; it would soon become known as “the intifada”. And when, in a small corner shop I spotted in one of the papers a picture of an Israeli soldier beating a Palestinian demonstrator with the butt of his rifle, my hair stood on end. There was something very poignant about this picture: the Palestinian looking up at the Israeli and the soldier looking down while raising his rifle. </p>
<p>From Kathmandu I sent a letter to the editor of Haaretz newspaper criticising my fellow Israelis and accusing them of committing the same brutal crimes against the Palestinians that so many other peoples of the world had once wreaked upon Jews.</p>
<p>In my letter, which was published, I wrote that I would not return home before the abuse of Palestinians was over. But in the end I had nowhere else to go. In Jerusalem when I bumped into journalist friend of mine, he raised an eyebrow and asked: “Well, what are you doing here?” I had no answer. But I did say that should I be called up by the army for a tour of duty in the occupied territories, I would flatly refuse. He printed the exchange a week or so later in the Haaretz weekend supplement under the headline “Ronnie Bregman refuses for the first time”.</p>
<p>Refusal to serve was an unusual act of defiance quite unheard of in those early days of the intifada, particularly by someone like me – a Major (res.) in the army with war experience in 1982 Lebanon. To save myself from the unpleasant prospect of being sent to prison for refusing to serve, I packed up my bags and emigrated to England, where I still live.</p>
<h2>Unit 8200</h2>
<p>Last week 43 IDF soldiers – many of them still active reservists – <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/12/israeli-intelligence-reservists-refuse-serve-palestinian-territories">signed a public letter</a> which they sent to Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and to the IDF chief of staff declaring that they will refuse to serve in the occupied Palestinian territories. All the signatories were from <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/best-tech-school-is-israels-unit-8200-2013-8">Israel’s elite Unit 8200</a> which is the equivalent of America’s NSA or Britain’s GCHQ, its task to collect signals intelligence by interception, for example, of communications between people.</p>
<p>In my <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jul/18/cursed-victory-history-israel-occupied-territories-ahron-bregman-review">recently published book Cursed Victory</a> I quoted directly from top secret transcripts of telephone conversations, including between former president, Bill Clinton, and world leaders and among Palestinians in the occupied territories, all obtained by Unit 8200. </p>
<p>Secretly listening to telephone conversations of the president of the US enables Israeli leaders to manoeuvre in world politics. Collecting Palestinians’ private information such as sexual preferences or health problems enables the Israelis to blackmail Palestinians into becoming informants. The veterans of Unit 8200 said in their letter that they “refuse to continue serving as tools in deepening the military control over the Occupied Territories” and as a result they are “conscientiously incapable of continuing to serve this system”.</p>
<h2>Refusing to serve</h2>
<p>In the period between my 1988 refusal to serve in the occupied territories and last week’s refusal of the 43 Unit 8200 veterans, there have been some other high-profile incidents of refusals to serve. In 2002, for instance, <a href="http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2003/3038idf_pilots.html">27 reserve pilots published a letter</a> declaring their refusal to fly assassination sorties over Gaza after <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/jul/23/israel1">14 civilians, including children, were killed alongside Salah Shehade</a>, the leader of Hamas’s military wing, by a one-tonne bomb dropped on Shehade’s house from an F-16.</p>
<p>Sadly, in Israel, the refusal to serve in the occupied territories is not a widespread phenomenon, not least because it takes real guts to stand out and spell out the words “I refuse to serve”. It isn’t easy – and I know that from my own personal experience – to turn your back on your own country and people, as it leads to isolation and resentment by friends and often family.</p>
<p>And how effective is the refusal to serve in bringing an end to the Israeli occupation? The slogan, one often hears, that the more Israelis refuse to serve, the more difficult it will become for the army to maintain the occupation, is perhaps not wrong but it is much too simplistic. Most of those who refuse to serve, originate from the centre-left-liberal wing of Israeli politics which in recent years has given way to a more nationalist right which is both religious and secular. There will always be enough Israelis belonging to the latter group willing to do the dirty job which is at the heart of the occupation machine, if only in order to ensure that the West Bank is not given to the Palestinians.</p>
<p>It seems to me – and I’m sad about it – that the refusal to serve in the occupied territories will remain a personal matter done by a relatively small group of conscientious objectors with little – if any – real impact on the duration and conduct of the occupation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/31670/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ahron Bregman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In 1988, I was in Kathmandu in Nepal when I found out that war was raging in the occupied territories; it would soon become known as “the intifada”. And when, in a small corner shop I spotted in one of…Ahron Bregman, Lecturer, Department of War Studies, King's College LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/301332014-08-06T05:09:58Z2014-08-06T05:09:58ZMy time in Israeli Defence Force tells me the level of casualties in Gaza is avoidable<p>In the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7381364.stm">1982 Lebanon war</a> I served as an Israeli artillery forward observer, my task to pinpoint the PLO’s positions and call in fire from our artillery units. We stayed in the evacuated Al Jamous School, overlooking Beirut. The routine was simple enough: I would pop into the classroom next door from where I would collect the co-ordinates and description of my military targets: “a military camp”, “a mortar”, “an antenna”. I would then return to my room and, looking out of the windows, I would direct our fire on the targets. </p>
<p>From time to time I would pause to let the air force get in to drop its munitions; and the navy would fire from the sea. Beirut, in the summer of 1982, was all burning up – a city on fire.</p>
<p>There was a purpose to this massive bombardment: to hit Yasser Arafat’s guerrilla force and its weapons – and also put pressure on the Lebanese, particularly those living inside Beirut with no water, food and electricity, so they demanded Arafat get out of Beirut which would then stop our assault. </p>
<p>In the end, a Lebanese military officer by the name of Jonny Abdu confronted Arafat who left Lebanon and moved to Tunisia. </p>
<p>Looking back now, I’m appalled by our brutal bombing of Beirut. Was it justified to turn this beautiful city into a Middle Eastern Dresden and kill hundreds of innocent civilians in the process?</p>
<p>Now to Gaza where, like in 1982 Beirut, the Israeli army is <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/israel-palestine">using overwhelming military power</a> to locate and destroy Hamas’s tunnels, to stop them firing rockets into Israel – and also to put pressure on the Gazans (as we had pressured the Beirutis) so they turn their backs on Hamas as a political force. </p>
<p>In the process, just as in Lebanon, hundreds of innocent Palestinians have been killed and parts of Gaza, as some sections of 1982 Beirut, have been turned into wastelands. Even worst, <a href="https://theconversation.com/attacks-on-un-schools-in-gaza-clearly-breach-international-law-29997">UN schools in Gaza</a> which are shelters to more than 250,000 refugees, and their hospitals have also been hit by Israeli artillery and bombs. </p>
<h2>Wayward artillery</h2>
<p>Can anything be done so that in the next round between Israel and Hamas, which is inevitable, there would be fewer innocent civilian casualties? </p>
<p>The answer to this question is yes. It is indeed possible to reduce the number of casualties on the Palestinian side, but this would require a modification of the Israeli army’s rules of engagement, namely the way it operates, particularly when in close proximity to schools, hospitals and other shelters. </p>
<p>For example, as an artillery officer I know that even now – with advanced technologies – artillery fire is unreliable. As an artillery forward observer, I always looked up to the sky, praying my shells hit the targets and not land on my head. Artillery shells have a strange habit of going astray. </p>
<p>In 1996, in southern Lebanon, wayward Israeli artillery shells <a href="http://almashriq.hiof.no/lebanon/300/350/355/april-war/un-report/qana2.html">landed on a UN compound near the village of Qana</a>, killing 106 innocent people. In the current Gaza war many of the innocent casualties were victims of artillery shells landing in the wrong place. What’s needed here is to ensure that heavy artillery is not used in Gaza’s urban areas – particularly not near schools and hospitals. </p>
<p>As for Israeli attacks from the air, at the moment, Israeli pilots, or those who dispatch them, can choose from a <a href="http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/israel/iaf-equipment.htm">range of bombs</a> weighing from 250-1,000kg. They often opt for the latter, as they are big enough to destroy the target completely – and the pilots are confident they can hit the target accurately, as they often do. </p>
<p>The problem is that the collateral damage of such big bombs is catastrophic in densely populated Gaza; it destroys not only the intended targets but also causes massive damage to nearby structures and kills non-combatants. Such big bombs must be banned altogether from being used in the vicinity of shelters, schools and hospitals.</p>
<h2>Hannibal Protocol</h2>
<p>Finally, certain practices employed by the Israeli army should not be allowed to be used, most notably the “<a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.608715">Hannibal Protocol</a>”, which is the IDF’s procedure for preventing soldiers from falling into enemy hands.</p>
<p>The Hannibal Protocol is yet another product of Israel’s Lebanon wars: a procedure to be used in the first minutes and hours after a possible abduction of an Israeli soldier. It calls on the military to dramatically escalate attacks in the vicinity of any kidnapping – to strike at bridges, roads, houses, cars – everything, in fact, to prevent the captors from disappearing with the abducted soldier. </p>
<p>When the IDF thought – wrongly as it turned out - that one of its officers had been abducted by Hamas in the southern Gaza Strip, the Hannibal protocol was activated to a most devastating effect. The army used everything at its disposal – tanks, artillery, aeroplanes, drones – and <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/01/israel-bombards-rafah-soldier-disappears-gaza-ceasefire-collapse">pounded vast areas in Rafah</a>, causing enormous damage, killing and wounding scores of innocent Palestinians. </p>
<p>The brutal Hannibal procedure seems to me to break all rules of war. It should be thrown out of the window and never used again in Gaza. </p>
<p>What will ultimately stop the death of innocent Palestinians and Israelis is a peace deal putting an end to the conflict. But in the meantime, a modification of the Israeli rules of engagement could reduce the number of innocent casualties.</p>
<p>In 2010, following Israel’s Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip which resulted in hundreds of Palestinian casualties, the IDF <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/idf-outlines-rules-of-engagement-in-populated-areas-1.292674">produced a document</a> calling on military commanders, operating in densely populated areas, to “exercise judgement and use more accurate weapons, or lower-impact weapons”.</p>
<p>It seems, judging from the sheer number of Palestinian casualties in the current Gaza war, that the Israelis are not following their own rules – or the rules were produced at the time as a PR exercise to silence international criticism.</p>
<p>There’s no reason to think the Israelis couldn’t change their rules, though. We have international conventions banning, for instance, the use of chemical weapons in war, so it is possible, I believe, to also prohibit the use of heavy artillery, big bombs and cruel procedures in densely populated areas such as the Gaza Strip. After all, it is also in Israel’s interest, as the horrific pictures coming out of the Gaza Strip ruin the country’s already tarnished reputation. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/30133/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ahron Bregman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In the 1982 Lebanon war I served as an Israeli artillery forward observer, my task to pinpoint the PLO’s positions and call in fire from our artillery units. We stayed in the evacuated Al Jamous School…Ahron Bregman, Lecturer, Department of War Studies, King's College LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.