As the death toll in Gaza escalates, so does the pressure from Washington on Israel to limit the killing. President Obama has conveyed his “concern” about Palestinian civilian casualties to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “Hell of a pinpoint operation,” John Kerry sardonically cracked on Sunday. Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright told CNN Tuesday that Israel appears to be “over doing it,” and is hurting its “moral authority.”
But while the U.S. is clearly distressed about the rising civilian death toll in Gaza, now at around 650 Palestinian dead, the Obama administration won’t say what it wants Israel to do about it.
“I think probably they could take some greater steps, maybe could do a little bit more,” State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said on Tuesday.
But when pressed to explain what “do more” actually means, Harf demurred. “I don’t have any specifics for you. It’s a conversation we’ll continue having with them.”
Harf wasn’t going off message. Later in the day, deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes also said that Israel “can do more” to curtail the death of innocents. But Rhodes did not elaborate either.
So it’s not quite clear just what the Obama team is trying to say. There are a few ways Israel could “do more” to limit Palestinian casualties, but we have to guess at what Washington means.
One would be for Israel to hold its fire entirely. But that’s clearly not the U.S. position. Obama wants Israel to agree to a ceasefire, but not a unilateral one. U.S. officials repeat over and over that Israel has a right to defend itself from Hamas’s rocket attacks.
Is it Israel’s ground invasion that America opposes? It is true that the U.S. sought to dissuade it. “Nobody wants to see a ground invasion because that would put more civilians at risk,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said on July 14, days before Israeli troops crossed Gaza’s border. But the U.S. has not appealed for an Israeli ground withdrawal.
That leaves the question of specific targeting decisions. Israel says it is extremely careful in this regard, noting that it takes steps to warn innocents about impending attacks, including evacuation notices, cell phone calls and low-explosive warning “knocks.” But it has still killed numerous Palestinians in their homes. Two weeks ago it killed several young boys playing on a beach. This week, its tanks shelled a Palestinian hospital that Israel said Palestinian militants were using as a base. Both tragic and damaging to Israel’s reputation, these are probably the sorts of incidents the U.S. would like to prevent.
Israeli officials say that of course they don’t want to bomb hospitals—but that they’re in an impossible position. Hamas fighters operate in civilian areas, and store weapons or plan battles from places like homes and hospitals, they say. The Israelis even argue that Hamas actually welcomes and facilitates the death of its people. Hamas has urged Gazans to ignore Israeli evacuation orders. In recent footage from Hamas’s television network shown to TIME by an Israeli official, a Hamas leader says: “We, Hamas, call on our people to adopt this practice” of “sacrificing themselves to defend their homes.”
In this challenging environment, Israeli officials say they analyze every strike, consulting military lawyers as they run a calculation that involves a kind of moral mathematics. As Israel’s ambassador to Washington Ron Dermer told reporters yesterday, that means weighing the civilian toll of a strike against the potential future harm to Israeli soldiers and civilians that might come from inaction.
That’s obviously an extremely difficult—and highly subjective—calculation. Dermer says Israel would never kill fifty children in a classroom to destroy one Hamas rocket; whereas he says one civilian death would be an acceptable price for destroying 200 rockets. But where’s the line? Would Israel accept the death of one child to destroy a dozen rockets? A dozen children for 500 rockets? Bear in mind that those rockets almost never land with lethal results; two Israelis have been killed by the roughly 2000 Hamas rockets fired this summer. That’s a 0.1 percent fatality rate per rocket. And yet any given rocket could destroy a school bus or nursing home and render that figure tragically obsolete.
Nor are fatalities the only relevant metric. Israel is also trying to measure the impact of those rockets on its society, economy, and tourism industry. And how to weigh the economic and psychological cost of cancelled flights into Israel’s Ben Gurion international airport? Then there’s the additional matter of Hamas’s underground tunnels, meant to enable terrorism and kidnapping within Israel, and the stated reason for Israel’s ground invasion.
When Obama officials ask Israel to “do more,” they seem to be encouraging a revised moral equation. Of course, the U.S. can never micromanage individual targeting decisions. But Obama may want Israel to conduct fewer strikes, perhaps omitting targets like hospitals, even that if it means accepting more risk to its soldiers and civilians. Some philosophers contend that demonstrably accepting more risk to protect civilians is the grim duty of a just combatant against an enemy using civilian shields.
Beyond the humanitarian and philosophical argument for that, there’s also a strategic one. Israel must weigh the Hamas threat against a more intangible threat to its international reputation. The United Nations’ top human rights official is suggesting that Israel (along with Hamas) may be guilty of war crimes. Yes, we’ve been here before: a 2009 U.N. report charged Israel with targeting civilians during its 2006 offensive in Lebanon. Its chief author later recanted that conclusion—but not before real damage was done to Israel’s image.
Which brings us back to Obama. The president doesn’t want to appear indifferent to Palestinian suffering—one senior official recalls how his standing in the Muslim world plunged after he seemed to condone Israel’s December 2008 Gaza incursion—even if he sympathizes with Israel, and might even respond in much the same way. Obama has accepted plenty of civilian casualties in Afghanistan and from U.S. drone strikes elsewhere, after all. But he evidently feels he needs to say something, even if it’s not very clear what he means.
Israel's Ground Invasion of Gaza Continues
A Palestinian Christian man from Gaza tries to push the coffin of Jalila Ayad in her grave during her funeral on the small and overcrowded cemetery of the St. Porfirius church in Gaza City, July 27, 2014. Oliver Weiken—EPAPalestinian men gather things they found in the rubble of destroyed buildings on July 27, 2014 in the Shejaiya residential district of Gaza City as families returned to find their homes ground into rubble by relentless Israeli tank fire and air strikes.Marco Longari—AFP/Getty ImagesPalestinians recover the body of a man killed when his home was hit the previous night by Israeli fire in the northern district of Beit Hanoun in the Gaza Strip during an humanitarian truce, on July 26, 2014. Marco Longari—AFP/Getty ImagesA Palestinian man walks past destroyed houses in Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza Strip, July 26 2014.Oliver Weiken—EPAPalestinian women react amid the destruction in the northern district of Beit Hanoun in the Gaza Strip during an humanitarian truce on July 26, 2014. Marco Longari—AFP/Getty ImagesA general view of destroyed buildings after Israeli attacks in a part of the Shuja'iyya neighborhood in east Gaza City, July 26, 2014. Oliver Weiken—EPAPalestinian girls peers from inside a UN school in Jabalia, north Gaza Strip, on July 25, 2014, where they found shelter after escaping from their home.Marco Longari—AFP/Getty ImagesSmoke from an Israeli strike rises over the Gaza Strip, July 25, 2014. Majdi Fathi—ZumaPressIsraeli APCs drive near the Israeli border with Gaza as they come out of the Gaza Strip July 25, 2014.Nir Elias—ReutersMortar cases are piled at a military staging area near the border with the Gaza Strip, July 24, 2014. Nir Elias—ReutersA Palestinian man holds a girl injured during shelling at a U.N.-run school sheltering Palestinians, at a hospital in the northern Gaza Strip on July 24, 2014.
Alessio Romenzi for TIMEBlood stains of displaced Palestinians are seen inside the UNRWA school in Beit Hanoun after it had been hit, Gaza Strip, July 24, 2014. Alessio Romenzi for TIMEA Palestinian woman stands in front of buildings damaged by Israeli bombardment in the Jabalia district of the northern Gaza Strip on July 24, 2014. Marco Longari—AFP/Getty ImagesRelatives hold the bodies of Palestinian children Hadi Abdel Nabi, 3, and one and a-half-year-old Abdel Rahman Abdel Nabi, at the cemetery in Jebaliya refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, during their funeral, July 24, 2014. Lefteris Pitarakis—APA young Palestinian girl who got injured when a UN school for refugees was allegedly hit by a Israeli tank shells, lies on a hospital bed in the emergency room of Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahiya, Gaza Strip, July 24, 2014. Oliver Weiken—EPADisplaced Palestinians from Beit Hanoun sleep inside the UNRWA school in Jabalia, July 23, 2014. Alessio Romenzi for TIMEWounded Israeli soldiers are brought to a helicopter on July 23, 2014 near Kafar Aza, Israel. Andrew Burton—Getty ImagesSoldiers carry the coffin of Sergeant Max Steinberg during his funeral on July 23, 2014 in Jerusalem.Ilia Yefimovich—Getty ImagesComrades of slain Sgt. Max Steinberg are comforting each other at Mt. Herzl cemetery, Jerusalem, July 23,2014.Omer Messinger—NurPhoto//REX USASmoke pours out of the ground due to an alleged campaign by the Israeli military to fill tunnels originating in Gaza with smoke to discover entrances into Israel on July 23, 2014 near Sderot, Israel. Andrew Burton—Getty ImagesPalestinians take cover as warning Israeli air strikes are fired at a nearby building in Gaza City, July 22, 2014.Finbarr O'Reilly—ReutersWomen grieve during the funeral of Islamic Brigades fighter Abdalla Ismail al Buheisi, in Deir Al Balah, on the Gaza Strip, July 22, 2014.Sergey Ponomarev—The New York Times/ReduxA Palestinian man looks through the window of his house to buildings damaged by an overnight airstrike in Gaza City, July 22, 2014.Alessio Romenzi for TIMEA mosque destroyed overnight in attacks in Rafah, Gaza, July 22, 2014. Sergey Ponomarev—The New York Times/ReduxThe mother of Israeli soldier Tal Yifrah mourns over his flag-covered coffin during his funeral in Rishon Lezion near Tel Aviv, July 22, 2014.Ronen Zvulun—ReutersIsraeli soldiers evacuate their wounded comrades at an army deployment area near Israel's border with the Gaza Strip, on July 20, 2014. Jack Guez—AFP/Getty ImagesIsraeli soldiers stand near their tank while smoke due to airstrikes and shelling rises from Gaza on July 22, 2014 near Sderot, Israel. Andrew Burton—Getty ImagesSmoke from Israeli strikes rises over Gaza City, in the Gaza Strip, July 21, 2014. Maysun—CorbisPalestinian men bury the bodies of a family who was killed after airstrike in Khan Younis, in the Gaza Strip, July 21, 2014. Sergey Ponomarev—The New York Times/ReduxPalestinians evacuate a victim from a building that was hit by an Israeli strike in Gaza City, July 20, 2014.
Hosam Salem—NurPhoto/RexPalestinian refugees unload mattresses at a United Nations shelter in Rafah, Gaza Strip, July 19, 2014. Sergey Ponomarev—The New York Times/ReduxPalestinians flee the Shujayeh neighborhood during heavy shelling in Gaza City, July 20, 2014.Alessio RomenziA Palestinian woman gestures as she stands amidst the rubble of her house which police said was destroyed in an Israeli air strike in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, July 20, 2014. Ibraheem Abu Mustafa—ReutersA damaged house in Shujayeh neighborhood in Gaza City, seen during a humanitarian cease-fire, July 20, 2014.Alessio RomenziA Palestinian man holds the hand of a woman, who medics said was wounded in an Israeli air strike, in the northern Gaza Strip July 20, 2014. Abed Abu Reyash—ReutersRelatives of three Palestinians from Abu Muamar family, who medics said were killed in an Israeli air strike, mourn during their funeral in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip July 20, 2014. Ibraheem Abu Mustafa—ReutersPalestinians boys watch people fleeing from Shuja'iyya neighbourhood in east Gaza City, 20 July 2014. Oliver Weiken—EPAPalestinians carry a body inside the Shifa Hospital morgue, in Gaza City. July 20, 2014.Alessio RomenziA Palestinian boy, who medics said was wounded by Israeli shelling, receives treatment at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City July 20, 2014.Ali Jadallah—APA/LandovA doctor cries while standing next to a table with the bodies of four dead children in overflowing morgue of the Shifa hospital in Gaza City, July 20, 2014. Oliver Weiken—EPAA Palestinian woman wearing clothes stained with the blood of other relatives, who medics said were wounded in Israeli shelling, cries at a hospital in Gaza City July 20, 2014.Mohammed Salemm—ReutersPalestinians, who medics said were wounded during heavy Israeli shelling, sit at a hospital in Gaza City July 20, 2014. Mohammed Salem—ReutersA Palestinian woman, who medics said was wounded by Israeli shelling, receives treatment at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, July 20, 2014.APAimages/RexTwo Palestinian men carry a white flag as they flee their homes during a brief period of ceasefire requested by local rescue forces to retrieve dead and wounded from the Shuja'iyya neighbourhood in east Gaza City, July 20, 2014.Oliver Weiken—EPAA Palestinian girl sits in a minibus after fleeing her family's house during heavy Israeli shelling, in Gaza City July 20, 2014.Suhaib Salem—ReutersA Palestinian woman, who fled her house following an Israeli ground offensive, stays at a United Nations-run school in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip July 20, 2014. Ibraheem Abu Mustafa—ReutersIsraeli soldiers fire their weapons during the funeral of their comrade Bnaya Rubel in Holon, near Tel Aviv July 20, 2014. Nir Elias—ReutersIsraeli soldiers carry the coffin of killed Israeli soldier Amotz Greenberg during the military funeral ceremony in the cemetery of Hod Hasharon, Israel, 20 July 2014.Abir Sultan—EPASmoke rises during what witnesses said were heavy Israeli shelling at the Shejaia neighbourhood in Gaza City July 20, 2014. Mohammed Salem—ReutersA Palestinian family who fled their homes is en route to seek shelter in a UN school in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip on July 18, 2014. Oliver Weiken—EPAA Palestinian child along with her family, who fled their home during an Israeli ground offensive, take refuge at a UN school in Gaza City with other families, on July 19, 2014. Mahmud Hams—AFP/Getty ImagesPalestinians, who fled their houses following an Israeli ground offensive, at a UN school in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, July 19, 2014. Eyad Al Baba—Apaimages/PolarisIsraeli tanks maneuver outside the Gaza Strip on July 18, 2014. Ronen Zvulun—ReutersIsraeli soldiers put on their gear on the side of a road across from the Gaza Strip on July 18, 2014.Baz Ratner—ReutersIsraeli soldiers rest inside an armoured personnel carrier outside central Gaza Strip July 19, 2014. Amir Cohen—ReutersIsraeli forces' flares light up the night sky in the northern Gaza Strip, early Saturday, July 19, 2014. Adel Hana—APMultiple rocket launches from a site inside the Gaza Strip firing towards Israel are seen from a lookout point in southern Israel on July 17, 2014.Jim Hollander—EPAA Palestinian salvages rubble from a destroyed home after an apartment building was hit by an Israeli missile strike in Gaza City on July 18, 2014.Hatem Moussa—APPalestinian relatives mourn during the funeral of eight members of the same family who were killed overnight in an Israeli strike on July 19, 2014 in Beit Lahia, north of the Gaza strip. Hosam Salem—NurPhoto/CorbisPalestinian mourners gather around the bodies of three siblings of the Abu Musallam family, during their funeral in Beit Lahiya, Gaza Strip on July 18, 2014.Maysun—CorbisA Palestinian inspects a hole made by an Israeli strike at the damaged Inteiz family house in the Shajaiyeh neighborhood of Gaza City, northern Gaza Strip, July 18, 2014.Lefteris Pitarakis—APNetream Netzleam holds the body of her daughter Razel, 1, who died in an Israeli air strike on Thursday afternoon, at her funeral in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on July 18, 2014.Finbarr O'Reilly—ReutersA Palestinian mortician ties a knot around the sheet covering the body of a dead Palestinian man in a morgue in Khan Younis, central Gaza City, July 18, 2014. Oliver Weiken—EPA