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Israel's Efforts to Protect Civilians Are Unprecedented in the History of Warfare

(Jerusalem Post) Ehud Yairi - On Feb. 13-14, 1945, three months before the end of World War II in Europe, British and American air forces carried out a massive bombing of Dresden, a German city lacking nearly any military significance. They did not provide advance warnings of any kind, nor did they aim the bombs at potential military targets. Conservative death toll estimates range from 25,000 to 35,000. A few days after the Dresden operation, the bombing of Tokyo resulted in 80,000 to 100,000 civilians killed. In the summer of 2014, the IDF went out of its way to minimize civilian casualties while attempting to eliminate enemy positions from where rockets were launched at Israel's civilian population. Prior to bombing, the IDF made warning telephone calls directly to Palestinian homes identified as military installations about to be destroyed, and dropped printed messages by airplane advising people which buildings to evacuate. All of these efforts to protect civilians are virtually unheard of in the history of wars of other nations. The writer is professor emeritus at the University of Illinois.
2015-02-13 00:00:00
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