International Report: Israel’s War in Gaza is the most “Deadly and Destructive” Ever

17th December 2024

2 minutes read

International Report: Israel's War in Gaza is the most "Deadly and Destructive" Ever

The organization Airwars has described Israel’s military campaign in Gaza as “the most intense, destructive, and deadly” compared to any other conflict it has documented so far.

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Most of the reports by this UK-based organization, which specializes in tracking civilian casualties in modern conflicts, rely on data from Gaza’s Ministry of Health, historically considered accurate.
Numerous humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations and governments allied with Israel, such as the outgoing Biden administration, have recognized these data as the best estimate of events over the past 14 months, according to The Washington Post.

Airwars is renowned for its meticulous and rigorous approach. Its reports have prompted more than 70% of the US Department of Defense’s (Pentagon) investigations into civilian harm incidents during the US-led air campaign against ISIS in Iraq and Syria.

In the case of Gaza, Airwars spent months analyzing open-source data on casualties, including Palestinian national ID numbers, social media posts, news reports, and other information, to build a database of each incident. While data for October 2023 are available, the organization continues to work on subsequent months of the war.

In its report covering the first 25 days of the war in October 2023, Airwars concluded that “civilian harm in Gaza reached an unprecedented scale” in the history of conflicts it has tracked, including the US-led air campaign against ISIS in Mosul and Raqqa.

In October 2023 alone, Airwars documented the deaths of 5,139 civilians in Israeli airstrikes, including 1,900 children.
This figure is nearly seven times higher than the average monthly child death rate in any other conflict monitored by the organization.

Of the 606 incidents involving civilian casualties it examined in October, only 26 provided clear evidence of the deaths of Palestinian combatants.
Airwars also described the campaign as “unmatched by any other aerial campaign in the 21st century.” The available data indicate a persistent and unusually high pattern of civilian harm in Gaza, far exceeding previous conflicts.

Human rights organizations have also warned of the threats facing Gaza’s besieged population, exacerbated by the worsening food crisis and the collapse of civilian infrastructure, including hospitals and water stations, due to the bombings.

Amnesty International declared that Israel committed “acts of genocide” in Gaza, an accusation that Israeli authorities strongly denied, calling it “baseless.”

The Airwars report concluded that Israel’s approach to warfare may set a troubling new precedent: increasing the frequency of airstrikes, intensifying destructive harm, and raising the level of acceptance of civilian casualties.

With the Biden administration’s continued support for Israel and the lack of prompt investigations into allegations of illegal use of US-supplied weapons, the consequences of this campaign remain a topic of legal and political debate on the international stage.