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On the Ground in Gaza: The Reality of Israel's Military Operations
(Forbes) Dave Deptula - I was the first U.S. general officer (active or retired) to travel across Gaza during this war. The Israel Defense Forces face the acute challenge of defending their nation while striving to protect Palestinian civilians. Unfortunately, negative perceptions on social media and elsewhere, based on a combination of disinformation, ignorance, and anti-Semitism, indicates there is a wide gap between the reality I witnessed and the perceptions abroad. Assertions that Israel is intentionally starving Gazan civilians did not match what I witnessed. While the average man needs 2500 calories a day to maintain a stable diet and the average woman needs 2000, there is enough aid entering Gaza daily to support over a 3,000 calorie a day diet. The military activities I saw, as well as the processes and procedures followed by the Israeli military, are indicative of the IDF complying with the laws of armed conflict. What I witnessed in Gaza impressed upon me that the sooner the Palestinians subjugated by these militant forces can be free of extremism, the sooner the world can become a better place. The writer, Dean of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies and a Senior Military Scholar at the Air Force Academy, was the principal attack planner for the 1991 Operation Desert Storm air campaign and director of the air campaign over Afghanistan in 2001.