In purely military terms, Israel is winning its war against Hamas. Its forces have driven Hamas fighters out of much of north and central Gaza, killing at least 10,000 while losing fewer than 300 Israeli troops.
But the war is taking a horrendous toll on civilians. It has killed more than 29,000 Palestinians, wounded nearly 70,000 and reduced much of northern Gaza to rubble. These figures come from Hamas-controlled public health officials and do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Over the protests of President Biden and European leaders, Israeli forces are preparing to assault Rafah, a city on Gaza’s southern border. Following Israel’s orders to evacuate, more than 1.4 million displaced civilians have fled there to escape the fighting in the north.
The plight of Palestinian civilians is eclipsing the global outrage that followed Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre of 1,200 Israelis and the taking of more than 250 hostages. This incenses many Israelis, who believe with reason that many Palestinians regard Hamas’s orgy of murder, rape and kidnapping as a legitimate response to Israeli “occupation.”
Hamas uses civilians as human shields and profits politically from their deaths. The more Palestinian “martyrs” it feeds into the maw of war, the louder the international clamor for cease-fires and false accusations by Hamas apologists that Israel is committing “genocide” in Gaza.
