Is the Gaza War the most destructive yet with conventional arms? | Inside Story

Israel's war on Gaza has bombed an area with an intensity that military analysts say hasn't been seen since the second world war most of the Weaponry is supplied by the United States is this war different to others in terms of its scale and speed this is Inside Story [Music] hello welcome to the program I'm Tom McCrae Israel's war on Gaza has killed more than 177,000 Palestinians injured tens of thousands and forced almost 2 million people from their homes many of which have been destroyed Palestinians can't leave Gaza the narrow strip of land that is not only one of the most densely populated areas in the world but now one of the most bombed some military analysts say the scale of isra is's attacks exceeds that of other mass air strikes in modern history such as the Allied Forces destruction of Dresden in Germany and World War II the civilian death toll and the rate at which they're being killed has also not been seen in modern times now much of the Weaponry Israel uses is supplied by the US which has called for the protection of civilians is that possible or is it a deadly contradiction with Palestinians the victims we'll be discussing that with our guests in just a few moments but first this report from Finton Monahan on Israel's weapons of death in Gaza Israel's war on Gaza has caused major Devastation around 70% of buildings in the north of the strip are in ruins more than 177,000 Palestinians have been killed and around 85% of gaza's 2.3 million people have been forced to move some from their hospital beds many countries including the United States have called on Israel to do more to protect civilians Israel has the most sophisticated one of the most sophisticated militaries in the world it is capable of neutralizing the threat posed by Hamas while minimizing harm to innocent men women and children and it has an obligation to do so European NATO member countries such as the UK Italy and Germany are among those who supplied Israel with the weapons used in this war but Israel's main military and financial backer is the United States that's been the case since its Creation with widespread support from both Democratic and Republican administrations the US provides Israel with military aid worth $3.8 billion every year much of it is used to buy state-of-the-art weapons in the early days of the war US President Joe Biden assured Israel it would receive everything it needed for the campaign against Hamas that the United States stands with Israel we will not ever fail to have their back we'll make sure that they have the help their citizens need and they can continue to defend themselves while International criticism is growing Israel is showing little sign of changing its tactics or strategy and since the beginning of the war the US has only strengthened its support vincon Mahan for Inside Story well let's look at the scale of Israel's war on Gaza the death toll far exceeds that of previous conflicts there for example in 2014 Israeli forces killed about 2,2 100 Palestinians when it attacked the strip compared to the war in Ukraine where roughly 10,000 civilians have been killed in nearly two years in just two months Israel has killed more than 177,000 Palestinians the Israeli Army uses a wide range of Weaponry some are Precision weapons such as small bombs and missiles launched from helicopters and guided to their targets but others are intended to destroy large areas and penetrate reinforced structures the Israeli Army has dropped 900 kilogram bombs on Gaza during this war according to the Wall Street Journal the US has provided 100 of these known as bunker Buster [Music] bombs okay let's bring in our guest now in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania is Colin Clark research director at Global intelligence and security consultancy the sofan group in B in the UK is Patrick buy a defense and security Analyst at the University of bath and in London is Sam peo Freeman a research coordinator at campaign against arms trade in the UK thank you all very much for joining us on inside story today uh first of all Colin if I can begin with you can you just give us uh your initial thoughts on the scale and of Destruction uh in Gaza in terms of the number of civilians killed in a very short space of Time how would you characterize what is happening at the moment yeah it's a massive and overwhelming humanitarian catastrophe I think in the uh introduction uh you mentioned 177,000 civilians killed which is just an unbelievable loss of life uh the images that we're seeing every day from Gaza are heart-wrenching uh and I think you know as uh US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin spoke about recently uh the Israelis uh whatever tactical Victory they're getting uh will come at a strategic loss because of the images that the world uh is seeing on a daily basis and I think uh I completely agree with Secretary of Defense Austin um I think a lot of what's happening right now is counterproductive and this hunt to eliminate or destroy or eradicate Hamas uh you know at what cost is what I would ask yeah Patrick if we can just continue on with with that thought the Strategic loss that uh Israel could suffer here I mean Israel has constantly right from the very beginning of this war has said that its aim is to wipe him Mas off the face of the Earth but from a military perspective I mean is this aerial bombing campaign that we've seen for two months now is this the right way to go about trying to do that well it's the easier way isn't it Tom and you know on the annihilation strategic aim as Colin has pointed out earlier you know all Hamas have to do is survive in some form and they've won uh if that's and it's very hard to completely eradicate any terrorist groups the last you know 20 years at least have shown us so um but look the air bombardment yeah it's the easy way of doing it theyve stand off obviously Israeli intelligence was caught napping here from numerous different reasons so they their eyes and ears into the gas of strip are not as good as it were uh as it was at one point and um and as a result you you you select your uh standoff Munitions and you bombard them heavily relied as you mentioned on the US to keep your your stocks rolling um and clearly again the targeting uh the targeting cells here and the crucially the IDE a what this hinges on in this bombardment it is intense it's intense in relation to mosul it's intense in relation to what we saw happen in C it's intense in relation to even the battles in maral uh and and and bmot probably on a similar intensity but the difference with those urbanized battles was most of the civilians had left yeah and there been corridors to get people out that's the Cru so that's why we're seeing secondly it's incredibly uh densely populated area and highly urbanized so in your in your introduction when you talked about the same kind of damage to buildings as the second world war yeah it is but there's a there's a there's a an element here of everything being condensed which is which is actually adding to it as well doesn't excuse it but it helps start to explain some of the reasons why you're seeing such high uh casualty and destruction notes but also it comes back to this idea of their Munitions that they're selecting and the principles under law of armed conflict which are about proportionality which must be balanced the risk to civilians must be balanced to the concrete and direct military gains to be made from taking that action and that's ultimately for IDF lawyers to understand and after they've been attacked yeah those those that idea of proportionality it's not actually written down exactly what that should be so in the targeting cells they draw radiuses around why where they think they are they can say that we didn't think uh there were that many civilians there they can say that this Hamas Commander is incredibly important and therefore we're selecting or there's a bunker there and we're electing a 2,000 pounder and they can drop it on it and if it kills you know uh 10 civilians 100 civilians you know the Israelis are just like well we went through the process of proportionality right Colin I I want to pick on pick up on one thing that Patrick was talking about there I mean is this campaign from Israel even actually working at this point in time because according to the Israeli military of the 30,000 Hamas Fighters that they believe are in Gaza they've killed about 5,000 of them that's only roughly about 16% after 2 months what do you make of how effective their campaign has been to this point in time well you know I was actually just this morning reading an article from uh Robert Pape in foreign affairs uh one of the the world's leading experts on air power and coercive power and and you know I agreed with the thesis of the article which is that the campaign is not working um this far in um this many weeks into the conflict to uh to be at this point to to me it's clear that uh what's started as perhaps you know uh strategic military objectives has potentially morphed into revenge and Vengeance and Collective punishment uh some would argue as Pape does in the article so uh you know only eradicating 5,000 of 30,000 Hamas uh militants not a total surprise to me you know given the infrastructure in Gaza given the tunnel network uh but this is hard fighting this is dense Urban Warfare uh and I think you know if you think about some of the high ranking Hamas commanders they were likely shuttled out of the country uh into potentially Lebanon into Iran elsewhere uh before the actual attack on October 7th so um the Israelis are not going to be able to eradicate Hamas and that says nothing about Israel's military prowess this is one of the most powerful militaries in the world it says more about you know the feasibility of completely eradicating a terrorist organization so I think the aims and objectives need to be properly scoped and Israel needs to immediately begin thinking about how to attach its military strategy to some kind of a political outcome or negotiated settlement because that's the only way this is actually going to end yeah Sam I want to go to you now I I know you and your organization have been investigating uh the arms that have being supplied to Israel what have you found so far and has anything surprised you well as a lot of the US arms trade to Israel is well known as your reporter said all the aircraft that um the the fixed wi combat aircraft that Israel uses in Gaza the f-35s and f-16s come from the US along with a lot of the Munitions um since October 7th uh the the the US has supplied by December 1st around 15,000 bombs and 57,000 artillery shells uh according to Media reports that includes those 100 bunker Buster bombs um that um Patrick was talking about uh Israel of course produces a lot of its own arms but of course the modern arms trade has a very wide and International Supply Chain so a lot of companies and countries are involved in the production of aircraft like the F-16 and F35 with the F-35 the the stealth fighter the UK in particular produces 15% of the value of every aircraft produced in including those that go to Israel this includes things like the um the rear fuselage the a lot of electronic systems uh the ejector seat uh all sorts of of system of sub system systems uh and we actually got on a freedom of information request a list of all the UK companies that are involved in this program and it is it is dozens of companies that are involved now we don't know if any new f-35s have been supplied since the war started but combat aircraft especially in an intense campaign like this need a constant supply of spare parts so undoubtedly all the aircraft that Israel has is going going to be continually needing new spares from all from all or most of these companies involved in this International Supply Chain I want to go uh to you now Patrick uh you touched on this a little bit before but can you just give us a little bit of historical context uh I mean how does this compare you mentioned Mosel but how does this compare with other bombing campaigns that we have seen over the last few decades well yeah mosto was the direct comparison because in the first week of the Israeli response they dropped more bombs I think it was 6,000 than the US and its Coalition Partners dropped against isil in the Battle of mosul in a month um so that that's comparatively you know how it adds up to something recent as as six years ago um look in terms of like look Warfare what we're seeing is becoming more organized there's more more cities uh they're more densely populated uh and armies are actually smaller and so Warfare and the advantage to the defender uh means that it it it coalesces in these areas uh which makes it very very destructive we've seen Aleppo destroyed mosul destroyed C destroyed um we've seen as I mentioned maral and bmot so it's happening in a a broader trend of more urbanized Warfare um and I think unfortunately for all those stuck in Gaza it's a particularly I mentioned densely populated densely urbanized and therefore more lethal environment um and as I mentioned again this this concept of proportionality which uh is obviously you know for example I served in Afghanistan in the British Army and we in 2008 we were in a fairly fairly rough place called sangin uh where we took a lot of casualties and halfway through the tour to to stop civilian casualties we weren't allowed fire 81 mm mortors anymore now they're fairly small in terms of lethality we couldn't call in 105 mm guns this is at a or you know an order of magnitude way below what uh what what what uh Israel are using at the moment in actually a situation which is relatively similar it was a high intensity counterinsurgency campaign but again as secretary Lloyd said you know what we were trying to do there was separate the insurgence the Narco Taliban essentially from the people uh as best we could and the Israelis this is completely lacking as Colin mentioned it's just creating a counterterrorism nightmare I would say for the next decade in the region and Beyond um uh and so you know another course instead of standoff air power could have been especially in this second phase after the ceasefire could have been much more Cordon sanit start to gain the intelligence picture you need you can be damn sure there's Palestinians in there who aren't fans of Hamas after this after what's been brought on them in you know and not in their name but um and start to build the intelligence picture again and use your special forces and surveillance Advantage which you're going to need to build up again to basically get in there and in a dirty war degrade uh Hamas military Wing especially as to Absolute minimum that you can yeah Colin for decades countries have have sought to to bomb their enemies into submission but also to try and shatter civilian morale I mean the theory is that when uh push to Breaking Point populations will actually rise up and and I guess push back against their own governments I mean we have seen that not work with Russia uh bombing Ukraine that that obviously hasn't didn't work there it didn't work when the Germans bombed uh the UK in World War II or when the Allies bombed uh Germany extensively in World War II as well do you think that there is any chance of it working here it just flies in the face of the empirical evidence that we have on counterinsurgency uh I spent 10 years at the ran Corporation a think tank in the United States uh and was lucky enough to be able to have several years carved out and devoted my time to studying every single Insurgency from the end of World War II to 2009 uh 71 in total based on our uh coding schema and we found that historically uh what we called an iron fist approach which is certainly what the Israelis are pursuing at the moment uh is counterproductive and actually counterinsurgents that pursue that approach some might call it you know scorched Earth uh they lose more than they win so they're actually seeding the advantage to their adversaries and Hamas uh and I would just Echo something that Patrick said earlier when uh you know Netanyahu and the IDF came out very early on in the conflict and said that the stated goal was to completely eradicate Hamas they essentially did Hamas a huge favor it was a strategic Communications failure on the Israelis part because as Patrick me mentioned all Hamas needs to do now to declare Victory and i' put you know quotation marks around Victory is survive and that's certainly something they're going to do the question isn't isn't is Hamas going to survive we know that's the case how you know how much intact will Hamas be when all is said and done smoke and and in what form will will they continue uh Sam you mentioned we talked a little bit about bunker bombs and the US has supplied uh well according to the Wall Street Journal 100 to Israel can you just explain to people who might not know exactly what they are just how deadly and how widespread the destruction can be from just a single a single Bank of bomb um I I'm not an expert on on the precise uh lethality of different uh Munitions but these are as we told 900 kilogram 2,000 pound bombs um and so that is an enormous amount of destructive power in what as uh uh our other panelists have said is a very very densely populated area and we have seen cases like in jabali refugee camp where a single strike has killed dozens if not hundreds of Palestinians at one mostly civilians in one go we don't know if those bust Busters but um at any rate the Munitions that Israel is using are clearly uh big enough to cause such utterly devastating totally disproportionate uh death and and injury and destruction and I would in um response to what my colleagues here have been talking about Israel if if Israel's goal is military victory over Hamas their strategy doesn't make sense but if as several Israeli ministers and members of the knesset have been saying if their goal is to actually depopulate Gaza to make the entire Gaza Strip unlivable and force the population into Egypt then it kind of does make sense okay I guess because these are supplied by the United States Patrick I mean is giving Israel these weapons is the US explicitly endorsing their use and then I guess if you take it a step forther further is the US complicit in any civilians that are killed by the Israeli use of Us weapons yeah well just on the on the bunker Buster thing so usually when they do these weapons tests they do it if they're trying to work out lethality they usually do them in the open right so it's obviously more lethal in an urbanized environment with buildings collapsing around you but a bunker Buster normally as far as I understand depending on the payload would have a lethal what we'd call in the in the British Ministry a lethal blast area of at least 100 meters radius so that's you know draw that around to make out the diameter um so just on that yeah look it's an interesting one clearly there's different and Colin might be better uh you know position to speak about the inside the Biden Administration to me but I think there's C certainly different uh people pulling in different directions about what should be done here um although Biden seems fairly clear uh that he's going to stay steadfast in his support for Israel certainly you know the US has a lot of Leverage here if it wanted to use it um and and of course you know where does it get its Iron Dome uh where does isra get its Iron Dome uh missiles from for example to protect itself is the us so I think the wheels would come off the wagon although they do have an indigenous you know big indigenous uh uh industrial military industrial um facilities the I I think the the wheels would come off the wagon in terms of the air campaign pretty quickly if America decided that enough was enough right well Colin I will throw it over to you then I mean how much pressure is on the US to to scal back the the amount of money and weapons that it is giving is Israel I guess it depends pressure from whom the United States when you look at the domestic uh politics here is getting pulled in two directions you've got uh you know the the impetus to support Israel particularly in an election year at the same time if you look at the younger voters genz and and below the demographics show that uh you know that kind of demographic is unhappy with Biden's handling tend to be more Pro Palestinian and pro-israeli so you know I think the administration's trying to read the tea leaves read the polls here but instead of playing politics the more important thing the moral thing would just to be to do what right uh and to apply maximum pressure on the Israelis to limit civilian casualties uh and to to not drop that as a talking point right this isn't just something on a checklist that you go down and say oh yeah you know we should mention that as well uh this is essential right because the United States is associated with this conf conflict and if you look at the numbers dead this is not something that's going to fade from the headlines this is a moral stain on the United States uh and so I think if the administration can wield influence and we know that it has in the past it needs to do so and it needs to continue applying that pressure and not stop Sam amesty International and oh sorry Patrick do you want to jump in there I was just going to jump in there I think also you know if this has been happening in in Ukraine and obviously terrible things have happened in Ukraine at the Russian hands in terms of Ukrainian civilians but if this was happening in Ukraine the Western condemnation would be much higher um and and I think really you're looking at a at a position now where the war crimes thing should be put on the table and kept on the table that if you cannot you know that we will come after your lawyers and we will come after your targeting Sal uh and this should be backed by the Gul States as well who for you know all intents and purposes are still pretty quiet they've been helping some of them been helping with the negotiations but the general consensus seems to be to box this problem off as best they can and get on with you know building their economies at the moment so I think internationally more can be done yeah okay s well as we've seen in yeah in in the last few days Amnesty International put out a report saying that Israel does need to be investigated for possible war crimes is that something that you and your organization agree with absolutely U of of course all war crimes whether by Israel and Hamas must be investigated uh but there is overwhelming evidence that Israel has been committing war crimes the blockade on food water fuel is itself a war crime it is collective punishment without a doubt indeed there's a case that what Israel is doing and many International lawyers who know much more about it than me uh that that what Israel is doing can actually be classed as genocide and the United States especially but also UK Germany and others that are arming Israel can also potentially in the dock for aiding and abetting war crimes by supplying these weapons continuing to spy weapons and components in the full knowledge of what Israel has been doing and going to continue to do and so think I mean the chances that Joe Biden would ever actually be arrested and brought to the ha are vanishingly small yes but I think that americ officials British officials Arms Company officials who are making these decisions should be watching their backs legally because the possibility that they could be in the frame for aiding and abetting war crimes in Gaza is I think very real or at least it ought to be okay Colin we've got a couple of minutes left I want to finish with you is Israel I guess how does this end is Israel going to be allowed to continue bombing until its Hearts content do you think well Allowed by whom again you know who who's the ultimate Arbiter of of this conflict so I think unless the Israelis make this decision to stop it's it's not going to uh my question is you know to what end what are the aims is it capturing and killing every Hamas high value Target uh is it you know totally attempting to decimate hamas's military infrastructure is that even possible uh and again I'll go back to what I've been saying since essentially October 8th unless this military approach and campaign uh and operational objectives are tied to some kind of political element uh then it's all for not because uh the Israelis have a term for for what they've been doing uh which is mowing the grass right uh and this this can't go on any further to do this every couple of years to have these uh allout congrations in the region there's got to be some kind of end and I think unless there's a you know a sustainable political solution here coming out of the back end of this fighting we'll be back here a year from now you know 18 months from now there will be no end okay thank you so much oh sorry Patrick do you want to jump in there very quickly I was just gonna say I think Tim might have put his put put his finger on the uh the pulse there where where he said that maybe it's actually just to to drive them out now okay thank you we've run out of time but we really do appreciate uh you joining us here on Inside Story Colin Clark Patrick buy and Sam Perlo Freeman thank you well thank you as well for watching you can see the program again anytime by visiting our website ala.com and for further discussion go to our Facebook page that's facebook.com/ AJ insidestory you can also join the conversation on X our handle is at AJ insid story for me Tom McCrae and the whole team here bye for now

Channel: Al Jazeera English

Views: 57,387

Keywords: Al Jazeera, Al Jazeera English, Benjamin Netanyahu, Gaza, Gaza War, Hamas, Israel, Israel air raids, Israel air strikes, Israel army, Israel bombardment, Israel gaza war, Israel hamas war, Israel military, Israel war on Gaza, Israel war on hamas, Israeli army, Israeli military, Netanyahu, Palestine, al Jazeera, al jazeera English, al jazeera live, al jazeera video, aljazeera English, aljazeera live, aljazeera live news, gaza war, latest news, news headlines

Id: VxaoNOlclww

Length: 27min 55sec (1675 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 07 2023