Ultimately, Hamas Owns Every Death in Gaza—Civilians Included | Opinion

The death of seven international aid workers from World Central Kitchen (WCK) in Gaza this week, was a profound tragedy.

Humanitarian aid workers, such as those from WCK, play an indispensable role in helping those most in need, under the most challenging of circumstances. They are true heroes, who literally risk their lives in times of war and crisis, like the current situation in Gaza.

So, it is understandable that there has been an immense outpouring of emotion and outrage directed toward Israel, which unintentionally struck the vehicle the seven aid workers were riding in. However, we must also be mindful of the fact that we are only in this awful situation because of the heinous acts committed by Hamas on Oct. 7. Even now, Hamas holds more than 100 hostages in Gaza and cynically uses Palestinian civilians as human shields.

There are those who reflexively accused the Israel Defense Forces of intentionally targeting civilians. That could not be further from the truth. In fact, it is a malicious distortion of truth.

The IDF has gone to unprecedented lengths, not seen in the history of modern warfare, to abide by the laws of war and avoid harm to civilians, even when doing so puts the IDF's own soldiers at risk. This has included warning of impending attacks and creating safe corridors for civilians to evacuate through. They have done this while continuing to facilitate the provision of humanitarian aid and supplies.

Regrettably, it is an inevitable consequence of war that errors will occur, especially in the complicated terrain that is an urban battlefield.

The United States itself, during its withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, mistakenly killed an aid worker and nine members of his family—including seven children—after targeting the wrong vehicle in a Kabul drone strike.

General Frank McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command at the time, called the strike "a tragic mistake," while General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff underscored that: "In a dynamic high-threat environment, the commanders on the ground had appropriate authority and had reasonable certainty that the target was valid, but after deeper post-strike analysis, our conclusion is that innocent civilians were killed."

Similarly, NATO members have also, inadvertently and mistakenly, killed civilians, as in Libya in 2011, when 13 people, including ambulance workers, were killed by so-called "friendly fire."

In the case of World Central Kitchen, Israel immediately acknowledged the grave error, with the IDF Chief of Staff General Herzi Halevi stating: "I want to be very clear—the strike was not carried out with the intention of harming WCK aid workers. It was a mistake that followed a misidentification—at night during a war in very complex conditions. It shouldn't have happened."

Israel's President Isaac Herzog, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, all likewise immediately apologized, took full responsibility for the mistake. An urgent review is already underway to understand what went wrong and that the appropriate lessons are to be learned. That is how a moral army in a democracy operates.

As White House spokesman John Kirby emphasized in a press conference this week, "They [the U.S. State Department] have not found any incidents where the Israelis have violated International humanitarian law."

There also needs to be recognition that there is a significant difference between errors committed in the course of battle, like Israel's strike on World Central Kitchen staff, and Hamas' intentional targeting of civilians, which is in fact a war crime and gross violation of international humanitarian law.

The fact is that for Israel, every innocent death is a tragedy, whereas for Hamas, it is their very strategy. And the West's failure to distinguish this only emboldens Hamas and perpetuates the violence.

This, of course, does not absolve Israel from its duty to abide by the rules of war and international humanitarian law. It has not only continued to do so, but in many documented respects it has exceeded those requirements.

Ultimate responsibility, both legal and moral, for every innocent life lost lies at the feet of the Hamas terrorists. If the international community truly seeks to avoid future tragedies and the loss of civilian life, it would be well advised to call on Hamas to immediately surrender and release all the hostages.

Arsen Ostrovsky is a human rights lawyer and CEO of The International Legal Forum.

John Spencer is chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute (MWI) at West Point, codirector of MWI's Urban Warfare Project and host of the "Urban Warfare Project Podcast."

The views expressed in this article are the writers' own.