Caution Required: War Kills

"Canada calls on its allies and partners to recognize that these terrorist acts are unacceptable and that solidarity with Israel is the best way of stopping the conflict."
"The indiscriminate rocket attacks from Gaza on Israel are terrorist acts, for which there is no justification. It is evident that Hamas is deliberately using human shields to further terror in the region."
Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Canada

"Canada believes that Israel has every right to defend itself, by itself, from such belligerent acts of terrorism."
"Hamas has a clear choice. It can immediately lay down their arms, and stop the indiscriminate firing of rockets at innocent Israelis, or accept blame for the continuation of hostilities."
Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, Ottawa

"Israel has no choice but to defend itself. It has an obligation. We would do the same thing here in our country. But we think, ultimately, it's through a brokered ceasefire that we can hope to find some kind of solution. [He would not] sit in judgement] on how the Israeli air attacks are killing civilians]."
"This is one of the most densely packed places in the world. It would be a miracle if those kinds of things did not happen [demonstrating need for a ceasefire]."
Liberal MP Marc Garneau

Palestinians on Wednesday sat near the house of Mahmoud al-Zahar, a senior Hamas leader, after it was destroyed by an Israeli airstrike. Credit Tyler Hicks/The New York Times 
 
Total deaths in Gaza, now that the terrorist group governing the enclave has resisted a ceasefire, appears to have reached 200. Israel claims most are members of Hamas military, others, regrettably, Palestinian civilians; a bad ratio by any reckoning. Scant few Hamas commanders are among them. But among the dead are some Palestinians whom the Hamas leadership convinced it was their duty to defy the attack by the "occupation" forces.

Hamas elite are safely secured in their underground bunkers. Shelters meant for Hamas only; no civilian Palestinians are invited to share that particular haven, they are destined to be the casualties, the more the better for propaganda purposes, because it works very well in elevating the outrage from among exterior supporters of "the Palestinians", particularly from the left-wing West, and their academic institutions, blaming Israel for the deathly fall-out of conflict.

An Israeli artillery unit deployed next to the border with Gaza on Wednesday. Credit Atef Safadi/European Pressphoto Agency

Israel has hit almost one and a half thousand sites in aerial bombardments. Which works out to an average of one civilian death for every 14 to 15 sites hit. In the Kosovo air war in 1999, Human Rights Watch found NATO had killed about 500 civilians with just over 900 targets hit. Over one death for every two targets. A low-end estimate of about 3,500 civilian deaths for every 14 to 15 sites struck was estimated in the Iraq invasion. In the NATO Libya conflict civilian deaths were low at 72 in 3,327 strikes attributable to a vast landscape and lack of population density, the opposite of Gaza.

During the Kosovo war, NATO failed to issue advance warnings that had they occurred might have spared civilian lives. During the Iraq invasion no warnings appear to have taken place during the air campaign. Whereas in Libya a UN report claims NATO touted "leaflets and radio broadcasts" informing civilians how "to avoid areas likely to be struck"; a tad ineffectual through vagueness.

"We phone up our enemies and tell them that we are going to blow up the building, we throw non-explosive munitions, and that is a sign they are supposed to vacate the building. Only once we have seen them vacate the building -- and we are talking about [hitting] command and control places and not the terrorists themselves -- then we hit." IDF spokesman.

"According to the procedure, it is only after the IDF makes sure residents have evacuated the premises that the missile that could destroy the house is launched", says Ynet, an Israeli news site. Direct, specific, double-layered systematic advance warning is unprecedented in the history of warfare. It permits the enemy military officer to effect escape and the attacker to avoid killing his family.

It is IDF policy, and in some instances video evidence of targets being warned or 'knocked' exists. In other instances Gazans confirm they received calls or warning flares. But nothing is perfect, and nor is the carrying out of that institutionalized policy. One incident occurred where residents say no phone call came through and the strike, killing six people resulted four minutes after the warning knock.

In another, one minute elapsed between the knock and the strike. In two instances where the worst death events occurred in Khan Yunis and Rafah, residents say no warnings came through. A nine-fatality strike on a cafe occurred where no Hamas presence could be demonstrated. A general policy is generally followed, but during conflict there are many things that can go awry, and do.

There is photographic evidence of Palestinians appearing on the roof of a targeted building in defiance, after a warning. Hamas has done its best to inflate the death count by instructing Gazans to ignore strike warnings, and defy the strikes by standing in harm's way. In the worst incident of mass fatality in the offensive's first 48 hours, witnesses say that after residents had been warned and had left the house, to make the IDF think it was empty, neighbours and some family members re-entered to "form a human shield". At which time, the missile couldn't be halted by the IDF.

Gaza's interior ministry urged Gazans not to "pay attention" to Israel's "communications on the phones of citizens". A Hamas spokesman in a television interview praised the courage of human shields. Should Gazans ignore warnings and refuse to take themselves out of harm's way the IDF claims its intention to strike regardless, though there was a video-recorded instance when "the IDF decided not to bomb the home".

"In most cases ... Israel will simply refrain from taking action if Israeli forces are aware of the presence of civilians in the vicinity", stated the news site Arutz Sheva. But conflict is deathly, and people die. In any war situation it is most often the civilian population that bears the brunt of the brutality meted out by each side. Gazan Palestinians are used as fodder for Hamas propaganda which holds that the means justifies the end.