In the summer '63 edition of the journal Azure (#15)
is a detailed analysis of Israeli warfare as conducted last
spring in Jenin compared to other, similar military
conflicts. The article is entitled "Urban Warfare and the
Lessons of Jenin," and was written by Yagil Henkin.
The article compares, in detail, the IDF's urban warfare to
the Russian army's assault on Grozny, Chechnya; the NATO
bombing of Kosovo; and the UN mission in Mogadishu,
Somalia.
Following are excerpts from that article.
The battle of Jenin was, in many respects, the toughest
challenge faced by Israeli forces since they began operating
in PA territory.
Not only was there no massacre of innocents in the Jenin
refugee camp, but in the vast majority of cases IDF soldiers
took unusual measures—even at the risk of their own
safety— to prevent harm to the camp's civilian
population. These efforts . . . were not simply isolated acts
of restraint. They were the result of decisions made by both
the military command and the civilian leadership as part of a
deliberate policy aimed at keeping civilian casualties to a
minimum. The IDF followed these orders nearly to the letter,
even though they significantly complicated fighting in a
residential area, and despite the fact that other
armies— even the most `enlightened' among
them—have rarely shown such a level of concern for
civilian populations in time of war.
Indeed, in the history of modern warfare it is difficult to
find another example of an invading army that took upon
itself such a degree of restraint in order to minimize
civilian casualties. The relatively low number of civilian
casualties in Jenin not only gives the lie to the accusations
made in the months that followed, but also testifies to the
high moral standard employed by the IDF—a rare
demonstration of humanity in the midst of battle, for which
Israel paid a heavy price.
NATO forces considering an attack on Serb forces in Kosovo in
1999 went for a `cleaner' approach [than the Russians in
Chechnia]. The central aim of the operation was to stop
Serbian war crimes in Kosovo with the least possible cost to
NATO troops. Fearful of becoming mired in heavy fighting on
the ground, the allied forces mounted a massive aerial-
bombing campaign. The bombers, for the most part, maintained
an altitude high enough to avoid anti-aircraft
fire—which meant a notable decrease in accuracy and a
commensurate increase in the likelihood of collateral
damage.
During the eleven-week spring air offensive, NATO bombers
deployed 23,000 bombs and air-to-ground missiles in the
Kosovo region.
Though few of the Serbian army's tanks and armored personnel
carriers—the main targets of the attack—were
destroyed in the operation, the civilian death toll was at
least 460, and some even put the number as high as 1,500 or
2,000—the unfortunate result of bombs that missed their
mark.
Responding to critics, NATO placed the blame squarely on
Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, claiming that he had
deliberately placed military targets close to residential
areas.
Under the circumstances, NATO spokesmen insisted, civilian
losses were unavoidable; the bombings were "legitimate" and
would continue until the Serbs surrendered. NATO similarly
justified its air assault on the Serbian village of Korisa,
which claimed the lives of about 100 civilians, by declaring
the village "a legitimate military target" because of the
presence of Serbian troops and "an armored personnel carrier
and more than ten pieces of artillery."
In response to another incident in which ten civilians were
killed in a bombing of the bridge on which their train was
traveling, General Wesley Clark, commander of NATO forces in
Europe, blamed the debacle on "how suddenly that train
appeared" and described the accident's grim consequences as
"really unfortunate."
Finally, after a civilian convoy was bombed by mistake, a
NATO spokesman explained, "Sometimes one has to risk the
lives of the few to save the lives of the many."
Government officials in NATO countries supported this
position. British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, for example,
expressed his outrage at the Yugoslavs: "How dare they now
produce crocodile tears for people killed in the conflict for
which they are responsible?"
There were other such incidents, as well.
When cluster bombs landed in residential neighborhoods in the
Serbian city of Nis, they killed 14 people and injured twice
as many. According to a Serbian source, "the bombs fell on a
busy part of town at a time when people were out in the
streets and at the market, not protecting themselves in the
bomb shelters where they had spent the night."
In a NATO press briefing, Major-General Walter Jertz asserted
merely that "cluster bombs are used in aerial targets where
we know that collateral damage could not occur."
In Surdulica, 16 civilians, including 11 children, were
killed when NATO jets attacked military barracks in the
village.
NATO sources acknowledged that a laser-guided bomb had gone
astray and missed its target by 500 yards. The NATO statement
noted that the organization "does not target civilians, but
we cannot exclude harm to civilians or to civilian property
during our air operations over Yugoslavia."
In another incident in Surdulica about a month later, some 17
people died when missiles hit a hospital—which,
according to Amnesty International, was "reported to have
been marked on all maps of the area." Colonel Konrad Freytag
explained that "NATO aircraft attacked the military barracks
and an ammunition storage area in the vicinity of that
city.
Both these targets were legitimate military targets... All
munitions hit the planned aiming points." ... Military
experts also defended NATO's claim that the deaths of
hundreds of innocent civilians were a reasonable price to pay
in a campaign against a war criminal.
Philip Meilinger, a retired U.S. Army colonel, did not
hesitate to assert that the civilian casualties in Kosovo and
Yugoslavia were extraordinarily light considering the number
of missions and bombings.
Like the Russians, NATO members considered injury to the
civilian population unavoidable given the scope of the
operations in the region.
. . .
Palestinian forces were thoroughly prepared for an Israeli
operation in Jenin. The camp was booby-trapped from top to
bottom. "From the very first moment that their tanks left
Jenin last month [after an initial IDF raid], we began to
work on the plan to draw the Israeli soldiers into a trap and
then blow them up," recounted a Palestinian fighter.
Everyone, apparently, had a hand in these efforts: "The
entire camp was busy preparing charges and explosives,"
Mohammed Balas, an eyewitness, was quoted as saying, in the
Israeli newspaper Yedi'ot Acharonot. "Even women and
small children openly laid explosives in the streets."
Jenin's defenders did not hesitate to endanger their fellow
Palestinians, nor did they think twice about planting bombs
in houses—"inside cupboards, under sinks, inside
sofas," according to one resident. Cars and dumpsters were
also booby- trapped. By the time Israeli forces arrived, the
whole city had become a minefield. On one street alone, an
Israeli armored bulldozer detonated 124 explosive charges,
some weighing as much as 250 pounds. And this was in the city
of Jenin; the refugee camp itself was even more thoroughly
laden with explosives.
As early as March, Ze'ev Schiff was reporting in Ha'aretz
that the IDF had been told that "one of the criteria for
judging the success of your operation in the refugee camps
will be the lowest possible number of civilian casualties."
These guidelines set the tone for combat in Jenin.
Palestinian fighters in Jenin, . . . made little effort to
distinguish between combatants and civilians; on the
contrary, an Israeli source relates that "in many cases, they
[women and children] took an active part in the combat,
helping to prepare—or even detonate—bombs or
explosive traps. In others, terrorists holed up in a house
would have a woman or even a child open the door to the
approaching Israeli soldiers, forcing them to hesitate just
long enough to allow the terrorists to shoot first." Foreign
sources confirmed these reports.
Summing up, Henkin writes:
The IDF's actions in Operation Defensive Shield were not
flawless, and well-substantiated claims should be
investigated thoroughly. Nevertheless, the comparison with
other armies, including those with the best of intentions,
provides a jarring sense of perspective. The horrors of the
Russian campaign in Chechnya, the NATO operation in Kosovo,
and the UN intervention in Somalia show just how unusual the
behavior of Israeli soldiers in Jenin really was. The facts
speak for themselves: It is extremely difficult, if not
impossible, to find similar instances of urban combat that
resulted in so few civilian losses.
Throughout its actions in Palestinian Authority territory,
and in particular during the fighting in Jenin, the IDF
proved that it operates according to standards unequaled
among the world's armies. Civilian casualties, of course, are
a horrible consequence of war, even when they are few in
number. Yet we must bear in mind the truth of what NATO
spokesman Jamie Shea said when asked to explain the civilian
losses in Kosovo: "There is always a cost to defeat an evil.
It never comes free, unfortunately. But the cost of failure
to defeat a great evil is far higher."
