by Professor » Tue Jul 15, 2014 7:46 am
We should try to keep this in perspective. First of all, though, I will say that anything over 0 deaths is tragic, and should be avoided if possible.
However, Hamas has launched over 1500 rockets at Israel (as of Monday morning). In retaliation, Israel has struck over 1000 targets. The fact that the death toll is only up to 150 or so is, frankly, astounding.
The rockets being fired have no guidance systems. They are not aimed at any specific target, only a general area within a city. Basically, these are weapons of terror, not strategy, along the same lines as the V1 and V2 rockets used by Germany against England more than 70 years ago (no, I'm not Godwining this, yet). In retaliation, Israel is targeting specific structures that they say are being used to store and/or fire these rockets. In other words, they are targets with strategic/tactical importance.
Frankly, I'm amazed that Israel only kills someone 1.5% of the time it hits a target. And, is that "someone" truly a civilian, or are they fighting. Of course, we'll never know, since Israel will say it's almost always a fighter, and Hamas will say it's a civilian.
One of the only REAL conclusions that we can draw is that Israel is NOT targeting civilians, and is doing everything it can (short of not retaliating) to minimize the loss of life.