A normative document like an ROE doesn't prove actual facts on the ground. If taken at face value it's a statement of intent. And I'm not sold we can take it at face value. You may have implicit trust for the IDF. I do not, nor do many others. Continuing to argue on that premise won't persuade anyone.
I do not automatically trust the IDF. Through my many interactions with different aspects of it, I know in what areas it is or isn't trustworthy. I apply trust in this case based on experience gained through understanding of internal processes and organizational culture, hearing other people's perspective (everyone serves, everyone has a perspective and a story), analyzing high profile cases, and learning from veteran experts.
An American will struggle to understand this, but perhaps you can, as I understand you are Russian, so mandatory conscription can give you added perspective. But add to it the fact that Israelis serve 32-36 months and it's further amplified.
If my trust for the IDF does not persuade anyone, I invite others to test an IDF's statement on its current war in Gaza by checking it with other sources and see if things match up. In the Hague, it was the IDF that presented the evidence for Israel's case. The ICJ deemed it sufficiently trustworthy, which in turn means it deems the IDF's methods, regarding the case, to be trustworthy. This is something I'll circle back to later on.
If we can't know whether an area is in fact populated or not, how can we assess whether the use of unguided munitions is in an unpopulated area? Your argument is circular. Your proof that the IDF is behaving as it should is to point at IDF behavior as proof of an area being unpopulated. One could very well argue the opposite. The Israeli ground forces treat the area as unpopulated because it suits them, and the airforce drops munitions on it, and both go along with the area being designated as "unpopulated" for legal reasons. Meanwhile a considerable civilian population remains on the ground.
Legal officers are not subordinate to any branch or element of the IDF. They are a separate arm subordinated to the Supreme Court, therefore they cannot be pressured to bend to operational demands, at least not in a way that would go unnoticed in a career-ending kind of way. An operational level order can be issued despite legal advice, but that is also a risky move that would be isolated to the order-giver, and not shared with other operational elements that have their own decision-making processes.
Circling back to the ICJ. If there was some form of operational level order stating that an operation may be conducted as if an area is unpopulated when it is - or in other words an improper RoE - it would:
1. Be isolated.
2. Come under scrutiny and would be studied by the Supreme Court and the ICJ.
After all, it could amount to a form of a war crime, which the ICJ would surely find. Yet as of now, the ICJ ruled that no violations were found.
You claimed that the use of unguided munitions in populated area is likely a very small minority. Nothing you list defines the term unpopulated. Nothing you have stated directly supports that claim. Your explanation of basic principles is correct, but somewhat obvious. To prove your point requires data. Do you have that data or anything that indicates trends and patterns?
I have used statistics, which you commented on at a later point, as a form of tangible case. And I used principles which are easy to prove are practiced in reality via a chain process (if this happens then that happens).
Go back to the original claim and you'll see that I am not making this claim in vacuum, but rather to challenge another insinuation that the IDF uses unguided munitions en masse on populated areas - a claim which does not stand to scrutiny and which itself has to be proven. The burden of proof is not on me, even though I have shown my reasoning and evidence and willing to dive deeper.
Emphasis mine. Thank you for the admission. There we have the root of our disagreement. Myself, and from what I can tell many others, are not satisfied relying on just IDF statements. If the IDF is culpable, it's quite likely they won't be eager to admit it.
Facts don't care about feelings. If anyone would like to test these claims, I'm willing to aid them in a search for open source materials proving the case. Although I have trust in these statements, I do not actually follow the IDF's statements whatsoever. I follow reputable OSINT accounts. They piece the puzzle together. When people ask for the complete picture I give the IDF's statements because people would immediately attack the notion of giving mere pieces.
You set out to define the term accuracy for the purpose of a discussion on the use of unguided munitions in populated and unpopulated areas. Do you want to reconsider that attempt?
No. A proper methodology mixes general statements with hard data. It can mix general statements with very little data. But one cannot implement one without any general statements/rules whatsoever.
A typical oven reaches approximately 250 degrees Celsius. I must make a general statement that I refer only to home ovens and not industrial ones as well. In this case I believe a general statement is suffice because the population density of an area is not a function of a set of discrete values, but rather comprises of numerous different functions (can be quantified in any number of ways), with answers on a wide spectrum. The variation on applicable RoE is also tremendous, and involves countless other factors that characterize the combat environment.
So a bomb with an accuracy of 5m CEP might be considered very accurate. But if my aim is to destroy a tunnel, then that's unacceptable. I must have a CEP relative to ground level of just 50cm (arbitrary number). And if my target is the side of a building, then with a shallow release angle I can hit it perfectly fine even with a nominal CEP of 30 meters relative to ground level.
Personally I have some serious questions about all of these numbers. Let's start with the IDF data. To kill 10 000 terrorists the IDF dropped 29 000 bombs? Almost 3 bombs per terrorist? How does that bode for the accuracy argument mentioned above? How many hundreds (thousands?) of kilos of explosives is this per dead terrorist?
An airstrike need not target a person but can be against other targets, particularly infrastructure. Israel's policy of warning its enemies prior to a strike has the effect of targets often being deserted. This is what I referred to earlier when I said Israel's efforts to minimize casualties - come at a self inflicted risk. One particular set of targets that is usually unmanned is tunnels which require a significant tonnage to deal meaningful damage.
Below I linked to an Israeli report (from 2015). The full report may answer other questions you raised here. Protective Edge (2014) is a good reference due to its complexity and available literature.
Important excerpt:
indeed, the overwhelming majority of Israel’s over 6,000 airstrikes during the 2014 Gaza Conflict resulted in no civilian fatalities.
So a vast discrepancy between strike numbers and actual fatalities is a feature that was documented long ago and studied.
Casualty report:
Full report:
Are we sure we can trust the IDF designation of someone as a terrorist? The US has been caught conducting drone strikes and calling any "military age male" an enemy combatant in BDA unless proven otherwise.
The answer to this lies in the casualty report. 20% of total Palestinian casualties in 2014 were military age males and they were a separate category from confirmed terrorists.
Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist organizations actually put out messages regarding their casualties so unless they have a policy of actively hiding or downplaying militant casualties (which they have now, but not as much in 2014), which makes confirmation of identities somewhat easier.
Israeli RoE, even the most relaxed, at best apply suspicion to military age males, but not approval to fire.
Now let's talk about the Hamas figures. How did they get their 28k figure? Does anyone really consider their numbers credible? Do they have the kind of government infrastructure still functioning that can accurately record deaths? From where I sit there is no good reason to trust their claim. However this doesn't mean the number is lower. It could be much higher. The level of destruction in Gaza is massive, the conditions of hospitals are awful meaning many who would get medical help can't or don't, or get substandard care, and their pre-war population density was quite high. A 6 figure death toll wouldn't be surprising at this point. I suspect we won't know until the dust settles, but I disagree with your reasoning of "let's take the other sides' estimate as the high end figure".
I proposed some napkin math based on available numbers. I repeated the fact that these numbers are unreliable numerous times and that Hamas has a long record of inflating them. But they are not known to deflate them. If you have a proposal - go ahead. But it will amount to no more than a very rough estimate. Even if we were to somehow double the numbers, the point would still remain, so it would be useless.
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