Eight takeaways: How Israel weakened civilian protection when it bombed Gaza

that Investigation conducted by the New York Times It found that Israel, in the weeks following the October 7 Hamas attack, severely undermined its safeguards system to facilitate the Gaza strike, and used flawed methods to find targets and assess risks to civilians.

The Israeli army acknowledged changes to its rules of engagement, but said they were made in the context of an unprecedented military threat and that it always adheres to the laws of war.

Here are some key takeaways from the investigation.

High threshold for civilian damage in each pre-emptive strike

In previous conflicts with Hamas, Israeli officers were typically only allowed to put fewer than 10 civilians in danger in a given strike. In many cases the limit was five, or even zero.

At the beginning of this war, the Israeli army raised this limit to 20, before reducing it in certain contexts a month later. Strikes that could harm more than 100 civilians will also be permitted on a case-by-case basis.

Expanded list of goals

Israel significantly increased the number of military targets it sought to pre-emptively strike. Officers can now go after not only the smaller group of senior Hamas leaders and the weapons depots and rocket launchers that were the focus of previous campaigns, but also thousands of low-ranking fighters as well as those indirectly involved in military matters.

Limits on the number of civilians who can be exposed to danger each day have been removed

The military command briefly ordered that its forces could cumulatively risk killing up to 500 civilians per day in pre-planned strikes. Two days later, that limit was lifted, allowing officers to conduct as many strikes as they deemed legal.

He hit so fast that he couldn’t scan all the targets properly

The pace of the bombing campaign was among the most intense in 21st-century warfare, which officers said made it extremely difficult to properly screen targets. Israel dropped or fired nearly 30,000 munitions on Gaza in the first seven weeks, at least 30 times more than the US-led coalition fired in the first seven weeks of the bombing campaign against ISIS.

Use a simplified risk assessment

Israel has often used a simplistic statistical model to assess the risk of harm to civilians: it regularly estimated the number of civilians in a building where the target was believed to be hiding using a formula based largely on the level of mobile phone use in the surrounding neighborhood.

Large and inaccurate bombs were dropped

In previous wars, air forces often used “roof knocks,” smaller munitions to give civilians some time to escape an impending attack. Since day one of this war, Israel has dramatically reduced the use of roof roads. The military also sometimes used less accurate “dumb bombs,” as well as 2,000-pound bombs.

Using artificial intelligence to suggest goals

Israel has used an artificial intelligence system on a large scale for the first time. It has helped officers analyze and sign off on targets more quickly, increasing the number of targets officers can propose each day.

Late strikes

Hours often passed between the officer inspecting the target and the air force launching a raid on it. This means that strikes are often based on outdated intelligence.