The laws of war are intended to limit conflict and minimize casualties. But what happens when terrorists use these same laws to expand conflict and kill more people?

When the Laws of War Kill
Terrorist groups like Hamas know exactly how to manipulate international law to their advantage.
By James S. Robbins

The laws of war are intended to limit conflict and minimize casualties. But what happens when terrorists use these same laws to expand conflict and kill more people?

This paradox is at the center of a new report, “2014 Gaza War Assessment: The New Face of Conflict,” commissioned by the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs. It is the product of a study by senior retired U.S. military officers and academics, using primary source documents and interviews with senior Israeli, Palestinian and United Nations officials.

At an event last week for the report’s release, Eliot Cohen, a professor at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, highlighted the challenges of fighting an unconventional enemy that uses a state’s compliance to the law as a tactical and strategic enabler. In unconventional or hybrid warfare, international law harms civilians because those who don’t observe it use it as a weapon against those who do, with the innocent as their tools.

During last year’s six-week Gaza war – also known as Operation Protective Edge – the Israelis made significant efforts to comply with the strictures of the law of international armed conflict. Hamas did the opposite, deliberately increasing the risk to noncombatants and increasing civilian casualties. However due to uncritical press coverage that highlighted the fact of civilian deaths rather than how they came about, Hamas was able to seize control of the narrative in the media. As a result, according to task force chair, retired Air Force Gen. Charles Wald, “Hamas thinks they won this thing” even though they were decisively defeated on the ground.

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