Urban warfare expert debunks lies about Israel, explains how it shows restraint in Gaza

'If Israel was trying to conduct civilian harm there, nothing shows that,' says John Spencer, who has visited Gaza three times since December, embedded with the Israel Defense Forces

Published Sep 07, 2024  •  Last updated 0 minutes ago  •  4 minute read

During his time with the IDF, urban warfare expert John Spencer said the Israeli army doing "harm mitigation at a level that nobody's ever tried." Photo by Handout

John Spencer is one of the world’s preeminent experts on urban warfare. He’s been inside Gaza three times since December, embedded with the Israel Defense Forces, analyzing the war against Hamas from multiple angles. He interviewed the prime minister, the IDF chief of staff, division commanders, brigade commanders, battalion commanders, “all the way down to soldiers in the field.”

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He knows Israel’s critics accuse the Jewish state of conducting the war on Hamas with disproportionate casualties, excessive force, indiscriminate bombing and an alleged campaign to starve the people of Gaza.

That’s not what Spencer saw in Gaza. He saw the IDF doing “harm mitigation at a level that nobody’s ever tried.”

Col. Richard kemp, left, and John Spencer, right, Chair of Urban Warfare Studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point. Photo by Handout

Throughout his Gaza investigations, he observed clear and consistent following of legal requirements, and what is militarily referred to as “civilian harm mitigation steps.” Among these, were evacuating civilians from certain areas by handing out maps of safe areas, real time population tracking methods and warning shots on roofs.

“Of course, militaries have soldiers that do things that are wrong,” but as in other democracies, Israel has a system to hold those accountable, and investigate problems.

“If Israel was trying to conduct civilian harm there, nothing shows that. Not my on-hand research, or the numbers. Very few people have the understanding of everything that’s come before every large-scale military operation, against a defending  urban enemy,” Spencer said.

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Other military investigations, including those led by British Col. Richard Kemp and British Maj. Andrew Fox, have come to identical conclusions, he said. If Israel wasn’t following the rules of war, Gaza “would look a lot worse than it does now.”

Spencer, chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point, will speak in Winnipeg on Sept. 11 and Toronto on Sept. 12, organized by the Tafsik organization.

You really don't understand the complexity of what the IDF had to face, until you see the dense urban terrain

John Spencer

With over 25 years of service in the U.S. Army, he served two tours in Iraq, as infantry platoon leader and company commander. Today he serves as a colonel in the California State Guard as director of urban warfare training. There, he co-created and instructs the only existing course designed to improve the ability of commanders and staff to coordinate large-scale urban operations. He’s written several books on his expertise, and advised four-star generals and Pentagon officials.

“I believe in not just looking at the data everybody else has, but I have a research methodology of walking the ground, observing, asking the hard questions,” said Spencer, who is also the chair of urban warfare studies at the Madison Policy Forum think tank.

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“You really don’t understand the complexity of what the IDF had to face, until you see the dense urban terrain. You’re walking on top of hundreds of miles of tunnel. You have a war of this scale, in a context that no military has faced in modern history.”

This image from video released by the IDF on June 5, 2024, shows a Hamas smuggling tunnel in southern Gaza’s Rafah. Photo by Israel Defense Forces

Over the course of a decade, Spencer’s research has focused on military operations in such situations as dense urban areas and subterranean warfare, including Nagorno-Karabakh (Azerbaijan), Ukraine and Israel.

The charge that Israel’s response has been disproportionate or indiscriminate is “baseless,” he said.

Each Israeli strike has a “proportionality analysis,” he said, including the threat level and target value, the number of civilians nearby, the ability to act without civilian harm, and potential measures to prevent civilian harm.

Israel takes all of this seriously, he said. “There has been no actual evidence — unless you believe TikTok videos — of Israel targeting civilians, or any prohibited target.”

The accusation that Israel is trying to starve Gazans is also “a big lie,” and “the data does not support the claim.” Israel “has done everything feasible and reasonable to flood Gaza with food.” There are, however, examples where Hamas intercepted aid, sometimes shooting people to get it, then selling it at a high price, he said. “There’s a lot of evidence showing that as well.”

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Israeli soldiers operating in the Gaza Strip, in a handout image released by the Israeli army on August 14, 2024. Photo by Handout/Israeli Army/AFP via Getty Images

One big problem is that Israel is “horrible at communicating operations to the public,” Spencer said. If he had the ability to change things, he would “assign more resources to winning the battle of narratives on a day-to-day, hour-to-hour basis.”

“Under the social media algorithm-driven confirmation bias, if you had negative ideas about Israel, it’s going to feed you that. Then you’re going to infer what you want.”

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, has tried to make the case throughout 11 months of war with Hamas, including from the podium of his Jerusalem press conference on Wednesday: “We are fighting a just war, with just means,” he said.

The war, Netanyahu insisted, has “the lowest ratio of non-combatants to combatant deaths in urban warfare history.” He added: “We have taken effort that no other military has taken.” He also said Israel has provided Gazans a million tons of aid, 700,000 tons of food, medical aid, and water, among other necessities.

To Spencer, an Israeli win looks like this: Hamas virtually eliminated, Gaza demilitarized, hostages freed — and afterwards, reconstruction and deradicalization. But that’s a ways off yet.

“The enemy had 15 years to prepare to defend the area, meaning it’s going to require a lot of force to overtake the enemy,” he said.

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