How I’m Making Sense Of The Awful Gaza War
Note: This is a slightly longer post than usual. To listen to an AI generated podcast (with two AI hosts) discussing my post, click below:
A Doctor loses eight of his nine children in an Israeli airstrike.
A Gazan mother wails over her dead son. Relatives bring in screaming children to a Gaza hospital. These are just some scenes that assault our senses on social media and the nightly news. And while there may be a ceasefire in the works, it doesn’t look like ending anytime soon (although we pray it will).
And all this on the back of October 7 – the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.
How do we make sense of this awful war as Christians?
While opinions vary – and there are understandably strong feelings and opinions about this war, both for Israel and against Israel, my aim isn’t so much to convince you of any one position so much as to present you some markers, some data points that help me make sense of this war as a Christian, in the hope that it will help you as well.
Now, I'll admit that this is one of the most polarising issues out there – even among Bible-believing Christians – and so you may disagree with my thinking. But if you disagree, please don't take this as an attack on you and your view. Instead, see my post for what I hope it to be: a good-faith attempt to understand what's happening in Gaza.
So, where do I begin? What do I think of as I try and understand what’s going on?
1) The Bible does not give us a definitive ‘thus saith the Lord’ answer about this war.
There are some issues the Bible speaks to directly, such as the gospel or idolatry.
But there are many issues – including political matters – the Bible doesn't speak to directly. And I suggest the war in Gaza is one of those issues. There’s no chapter and verse about whether Israel should be waging this war (although Biblical principles and commands apply to how this war is waged).
As such, Christians are free to come to different conclusions about the legitimacy/illegitimacy of this war as a whole – even as we (hopefully!) agree on many aspects of how this war is fought (e.g. Hamas shouldn’t be using civilians as Human shields, Israel shouldn’t target innocent civilians etc). It’s a Romans 14 issue, not a gospel issue.
2) Whatever conclusions I come to, God is the Judge. And I can rest in His judgment and be humble about my conclusions.
On so many levels, this war is messy. It’s complex. It includes a litany of ‘he said/she said’ (or rather, Hamas said/Israel said). And when you throw in a complex history of wars, occupations, and attempted genocide, it makes for confusing times!
And so, I know that whatever happens, God will bring justice. Ultimate justice is not in my meagre hands (thank God!) but in our Heavenly Father's.
3) It’s right to be sad about sad things – including (and especially) war.
If we feel sad and overwhelmed by the horrific pictures on our social feeds, it's right for us to do so. It is sad, and God Himself takes no please in the death of anyone (which is why He sent Jesus), and neither should we.
And yet,
4) Raw emotions can impede clear thinking. And the mainstream/social media is designed to evoke raw emotion (especially about contentious issues like Gaza).
‘If it bleeds, it leads’.
That’s the governing principle of media, because bad news is good for engagement. And the social media algorithms are designed in the same way – not to mention they silo us into echo chambers. Which makes it difficult to think clearly and honestly about this challenging issue.
But should we base our conclusions about this war on whatever ‘bleeding’ the algorithm feeds us? The problem with doing this is that we become very one-sided. We risk becoming intellectually sealed inside an AI-fueled ecosystem, losing perspective and sound judgment.
5) This war, like so many wars, is morally complex. Many moral factors need to be considered for us to understand it, let alone to judge it.
I understand the temptation to look at dying Gazan children on your social feed and react strongly against Israel (especially when it’s a school or hospital that Israel bombed). But are there other relevant moral factors that we should also consider?
At the risk of sounding harsh, the answer is ‘yes’ (see below).
6) Christians (and others) might agree on the moral factors at play but weigh them differently and so come to different conclusions about the war.
While few, if any, Christians disagree about the horror of October 7, a key disagreement among Christians is Israel’s response: is it justified?
If so, how much force is justified? Is it acceptable for Israel to try and destroy Hamas, and if so, to destroy much of Gaza and kill Gazan civilians in the process? And what about the context – the immediate and longer-term history of the region – how should that affect our moral reasoning?
Christians will disagree on this issue, as the Bible doesn’t give us a definitive word from God (like so many other political issues).
But while there will be strong opinions (and emotions!) around this question, we should give each other space and freedom to disagree without breaking fellowship with one another, as per Romans 14.
7) How you weigh these moral factors will depend heavily on who you believe about this war.
If you’re like me, you’re not in Gaza or the IDF.
As such, we’re reliant on others to tell us about the war, whether Israel, Hamas, third parties (e.g. Aid/NGO groups) or social/mainstream media.
And there are disagreements over the most basic facts, such as how many civilians have died or how many Hamas fighters have been killed.
But even when there is agreement about the facts (e.g. the bombing of a hospital by Israeli forces), there is disagreement over what this means: is it a war crime? Or was Israel acting according to International law?
If you believe international organisations like the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice, you’ll naturally see Israel’s actions as heavy-handed at best, and potentially genocidal at worst.
On the other hand, if you believe the first-hand accounts of people like Professor John Spencer, (the Chair of Urban Warfare Studies at the Modern War Institute (MWI) at the United States Military Academy at West Point), who is an urban warfare expert and has been to Gaza four times with the IDF, embedded with IDF troops on the front line, you’ll come to the opposite conclusion.
8) The Key Question to help make sense of this war: What should Israel do about Hamas?
What you think about this war will depend in large part on how you answer the question of how Israel should respond to Hamas.
Many people would say Israel’s response should be anything apart from war – or at least anything apart from a war this destructive. I was recently talking to a friend about this, and he thought a more humane response would have been for Israel to have launched a more limited campaign: Commando raids and occasional surgical missile strikes to degrade Hamas (as opposed to the war we’re seeing now).
My response was that such a ‘lighter touch’ military response was Israel’s policy toward Hamas’ regular aggression over the last 20 years. The IDF euphemistically called this ‘mowing the grass’ – degrading and setting back Hamas’ military capabilities for a while. This was coupled with an Israeli blockade and a high-tech security wall around Gaza.
And despite all these measures, the horror of October 7 still happened.[1]
If Israel had kept this status quo after October 8, then Hamas would certainly remain in power, and is committed to more October 7-style attacks.
Would such a continued threat be acceptable to Israel after October 7?
(I think it’s reasonable for Israel to say ‘no’).
But even if Israel has a good reason to go in and remove Hamas, are civilian casualties acceptable?
9) Every war fought by the West against an evil aggressor has involved civilian casualties.
As much as we’d like to think that modern war can be ‘surgical’ (and many an arms manufacturer is happy to make that claim!), the truth is that any war fought by a Western army – especially in an urban environment - has had large numbers of civilians die in the crossfire.
Yes, surgical strikes may help. But you need boots on the ground to defeat an enemy for good. You need to go from house to house. And so, whether fighting the Nazis in WW2, or more recently, US operations in Somalia and Iraq (e.g. the ‘Black Hawk Down’ fiasco in Mogadishu, or Fallujah and Mosul in Iraq), there is always civilian collateral damage in terms of lives and infrastructure.
And yet, isn’t the scale of destruction worse than other wars?
10) Why is this war so destructive? Hamas’s tactics and strategy make it worse than nearly any other urban war in history.
How Israel is fighting the war is another key area of controversy.
However, even those opposed to the war agree that Hamas is not fighting according to International Law. In particular:
Hamas do not wear uniforms but blend in with the surrounding population, from where they fire their weapons at the IDF
Hamas fire their weapons from areas designated as safe zones, namely schools, mosques and hospitals. They also keep their headquarters and weapons under and around those buildings.
Most egregiously, Hamas use their population as Human Shields. Despite having built a tunnel system under Gaza, not one Gazan civilian is allowed to take shelter there from the fighting – it's exclusively for Hamas use.
Hamas are on record as saying they’ll gladly sacrifice their population (whom they radicalise from childhood) for the sake of taking out Israel, as this is their religious privilege. They don't see death as something to avoid; for them, martyrdom – by killing Israelis or as collateral damage – is the greatest joy.
In other words, it’s not wrong to call them a death cult.
Furthermore, Hamas has been fortifying the built-up areas for around two decades, preparing for this war. According to urban warfare expert and researcher Professor John Spencer from West Point, this makes urban warfare so much more brutal for the IDF. As he points out in this podcast, in other urban environments like WW2 (Aachen, Stalingrad, etc), the defenders didn’t have years or decades to fortify the town. But Hamas had almost two decades to fortify Gaza, as it wanted this fight.
And this is what the IDF is up against, which is one reason why this war is so brutal and dragging on for so long.
But this raises the question of proportionality.
Often, I hear people say: 'Hamas killed 1700; yes, that's bad. But Israel has killed lots more – in the tens of thousands. That is not proportional'.
And this brings up the next point:
11) In International law, proportionality isn’t assessed based on an entire war's civilian body count but on individual targets within the war.
According to International Law, ‘proportionality’ is not a term applied to the conflict as a whole.
A war isn’t considered ‘proportional’ if the civilian body count on both sides is equivalent in number.[2]
Rather, under the international Laws of Armed Conflict (LOAC), ‘proportionality’ is used in the context of attacking a particular target and whether using force to attack that specific target is proportional to the collateral damage it would cause to infrastructure and civilian life.
This is according to the 1977 Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of August 12 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I). Specifically, Article 51(5)(b) of AP I prohibits attacks "which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated".[3]
In other words, if Hamas, contrary to International Law, fights from hospitals, schools, and Mosques, then such infrastructure is no longer guaranteed protection: in such cases, the Israelis are then allowed to make a proportionality assessment on said hospital, school or Mosque. And if Israel’s military gain outweighs the potential collateral damage, according to the principles of LOAC, then a strike is permissible.
(Listen to this podcast for a neutral assessment of this aspect of international law from a former US military (‘JAG’) lawyer and Iraq veteran, David French. Listen to this podcast for an IDF military lawyer's perspective).
12) Hamas started this war, and they could end this war tomorrow if they surrendered. So why isn’t there ongoing international pressure and condemnation on Hamas to do that?
There is a lot of pressure, and indeed condemnation of Israel to stop fighting.
Weekly protests in many cities, encampments on university campuses, and ongoing coverage. But considering this war could end tomorrow if Hamas gave itself up, not to mention they’re not fighting anywhere near international norms (e.g. using their people as human shields), why isn’t there at least equal and ongoing international condemnation of Hamas’ actions?
Why aren't the UN, the EU, and other countries demanding that Hamas lay down its weapons for the sake of peace and its civilian population?
Making sense of it all
Now, you might agree or disagree with what I’ve said above.
But I hope it gives you some more things to consider as we try to make sense of this painful situation.
[1] I think it's also worth remembering the context over the last 20 years: Israel unilaterally withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005, and the Palestinians in Gaza voted in Hamas, then already an internationally recognised terrorist organisation. Israel then began blockading Gaza in response to the Hamas aggression, and yet Hamas still built up its underground tunnels and weapons, threatening and often attacking Israel.)
[2] If civilian body count was the measure, then the WW2 Americans/Brits/Aussies were not ‘proportional’ to the Germans and Japanese, considering how few of their civilians died compared to the German/Japanese civilians.
[3] Furthermore, Article 57 of AP I, which details precautions in attack, is intrinsically linked to the proportionality assessment. It mandates that those who plan or decide upon an attack must, inter alia, do everything feasible to verify that the objectives to be attacked are military objectives and not civilians or civilian objects, and to assess whether the attack may be expected to cause incidental harm that would violate the rule of proportionality. Should it become apparent that the attack would be disproportionate, it must be cancelled or suspended.