Moment Investigation by The New York Times It found that Israel had seriously compromised its security system and used flawed methods to locate targets and assess the risk to civilians to facilitate strikes on Gaza in the weeks following the 7 October Hamas attack.
The Israeli military acknowledged the changes to the rules of engagement, but said they were made in the context of an unprecedented military threat and always followed the laws of war.
Here are some key takeaways from the investigation.
Increased civilian damage threshold for each preemptive strike
In previous clashes with Hamas, Israeli officers were usually allowed to endanger fewer than 10 civilians per strike. In many cases the limit was five or even zero.
At the beginning of this war, the Israeli army raised this limit to 20, and a month later reduced it in certain contexts. Strikes that could harm more than 100 civilians will also be allowed on a case-by-case basis.
Expanded list of targets
Israel has significantly increased the number of military targets it actively seeks to strike. Officers could now go after not only Hamas's small pool of senior commanders, weapons caches and rocket launchers, but also thousands of lower-ranking fighters and, by implication, those involved in military affairs.
Limits on how many civilians can be put at risk each day have been lifted
The military leadership briefly ordered its forces to risk killing up to 500 civilians a day in pre-planned strikes. Two days later even this limit was lifted and officers were allowed to take as many strikes as they considered legal.
All targets were hit too fast to check properly
The pace of the bombing campaign was one of the most intense in 21st-century warfare, and officers said it made it much more difficult to accurately inspect targets. Israel has fired or fired nearly 30,000 rounds of ammunition into Gaza in the first seven weeks, at least 30 times more than the US-led coalition fired in the first seven weeks of its bombing campaign against ISIS.
A simple risk assessment was used
Israel often used a simple statistical model to estimate the risk of harming civilians: It routinely estimated the number of civilians in a building where a target was believed to be hiding, using a formula based largely on the level of cellphone use in the surrounding area.
He dropped large, inaccurate bombs
In previous wars, air forces often used a smaller munition, the “roof tap,” to give civilians some time to avoid surprise attack. Since the first day of this war, Israel has significantly reduced the use of shelling techniques. The military also sometimes used less accurate “dumb bombs” and 2,000-pound bombs.
Artificial intelligence was used to suggest targets
Israel was the first to make extensive use of an artificial intelligence system. This helped officers analyze and sign targets more quickly, increasing the number of targets officers could suggest each day.
Late holidays
It often took hours between an officer checking a target and the air force striking it. This meant that strikes were often based on outdated intelligence.