New outrage hits Israel's already-hammered reputation

Australians are justifiably upset about the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) drone strike on a food aid convoy that killed Australian aid worker Zomi Frankcom.

There can of course be no objection to Israel's right to defend itself - but that does not extend to the wanton killing of so many Palestinians, journalists and aid workers in its attempt to destroy Palestinian militant groups and recover Israeli hostages in Gaza.

Before the current Gaza conflict, the ratio of Palestinian civilians killed to Israeli civilians was around 20 to one. Now it's more than 30 to one.

The death toll from the October 7 terrorist attacks - that were the catalyst for the Gaza conflict, was 1139, comprising 695 Israeli civilians, 71 foreign nationals, and 373 members of the security forces.

Five people are classed as missing. The deaths included 36 children. At the same time, Hamas and Islamic Jihad kidnapped 253 Israelis and foreigners and took them back to Gaza. Of those taken, about 130 remain unaccounted for - but at least 34 are presumed dead.

Since then, over 32,600 Gaza Palestinians, the majority being women and children, have been killed according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. (The Gaza MoH has historically reported accurate mortality data, with discrepancies between MoH reporting and independent UN analyses ranging from 1.5 to 3.8 per cent.)

In fact, the total death toll in Gaza is presumed to be much higher than reported, with thousands unaccounted for, including those trapped under rubble.

The Gaza MoH reporting does not distinguish between combatant and civilian casualties. Hamas say they have lost 6,000 fighters in the war, while the IDF claims to have killed 12,000 Hamas combatants as of 19 February. As of 31 March, 256 IDF soldiers had been killed.

The Gaza war has also taken a heavy told of journalists and aid workers. By April 2, at least 95 journalists and media workers had been killed and, according to the US Agency for International Development, 203 aid workers had been killed.

The killing of Zomi Frankcom was followed by the usual IDF statement that it was looking into the matter, although in this case it soon admitted that the drone strike that killed seven international aid workers was due to "misidentification".

However, the aid vehicles had the World Central Kitchen (WCK) charity logo on top and had been granted IDF permission to drive along a pre-approved route between the coast and a food warehouse.

The IDF rarely seems to take any action taken against those responsible for its operational mistakes.

Israeli public relations variations are that the IDF was targeting a Hamas commander, or that the targeted building contained a Hamas command post or weapons cache.

A fallback position is to claim the casualties were collateral damage during an operation to recover Israeli hostages. Another variation is to distract the media by revealing new information about the October 7 terrorist attacks. The lack of punishment for IDF members suggests that the IDF has political top cover for its actions.

The Israeli position on civilian casualties is that Hamas is to blame because Hamas is hiding among civilians and under medical facilities.

That's undoubtedly true - but hiding among civilians is what insurgents and terrorists normally do. They do it because it makes them harder to defeat or eradicate. If they can operate from neighbouring states, so much the better.

In the Gaza context, it would be impossible to eradicate Hamas and other militant groups without killing most of the civilian population.

Meanwhile, Hamas organisers in other more distant Arab states, such as Qatar, are well insulated from Israeli retaliation. (The current head of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, has resided in Doha since 2016.)

The US is in an ambiguous situation, with US secretary of state Anthony Blinken flitting from capital to capital, seemingly impotent to get Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to change his policies or agree to a viable way forward.

There is international cynicism about America's position because on the one hand the US is bombing the Palestinians with food, while on the other the IDF is killing them with American bombs and other ordnance.

Had the attacker not been Israel, the US would probably have long ago called out the senior leadership for war crimes. (In March 2022, President Joe Biden was quick to label Russian President Vladimir Putin a war criminal for doing much less.)

The reasons for the invasions of Ukraine and Gaza were different and one's a conventional conflict and the other's an unconventional conflict, however it's interesting to compare the number of civilian casualties in the two conflicts.

The war in Ukraine over a period of two years has killed around 10,500 Ukrainian civilians. It's estimated that the war in Gaza in six months has probably killed around 35,000 noncombatant civilians.

Meanwhile, the Five-Eyes community, including Australia, has been reluctant to criticise the US and its ally Israel because for them the US alliance is more important that taking a moral position about the heavy loss of Palestinian lives and Israeli use of food deprivation as a weapon.

From my experience of the IDF ground forces, they are militarily a mixed bag, ranging from excellent special forces units to shambolic infantry units comprising trigger-happy conscripts.

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The lax rules of engagement in Gaza have also led to unnecessary casualties, such as the deaths of three Israeli hostages in December 2023.

The hostages, who were seeking rescue by the IDF, were visibly unarmed and shirtless, and waving a makeshift white flag when soldiers shot them.

According to The Jerusalem Post, a preliminary investigation found IDF instructions to soldiers in Shuja'iyya/Shejaia were to open fire on any man of fighting age who approached them.

Following an investigation, the IDF stated the killings were preventable, but disciplinary actions were not needed since there was "no malice" on the part of the soldiers.

Prime Minister Netanyahu is ploughing ahead with provocative strikes against Iranian commanders and facilities in Lebanon and Syria and vowing that he will soon mount a ground offensive in Rafah (that would inevitably result in a substantial increase in civilian casualties).

Netanyahu seems intent on drawing Iran and the US into the conflict with a view to eliminating Iran as a regional competitor and supporter of Hamas.