Double Standards vs. Equity – War Fatalities : From Blog Posts to Book
The purpose of “Double Standards vs. Equity – War Fatalities” and these blog posts is to combine them into a published book entitled Safe Schools for Jewish Students: An Educator’s Guide to Preventing Antisemitism and Strengthening Belonging.
Go here for the full Table of Contents.
Chapter 4 – Double Standards vs. Equity: War Fatalities
Double Standards vs. Equity: War Fatalities
A recent criticism against Israel is the number of Palestinians killed in the Gaza War of 2023-2026. The latest number of deaths broadcast in the news is about 75,000 Palestinians.
These deaths are tragic.
The number of deaths, unfortunately, has been used as an excuse to be against Israel. The deaths of Palestinians have been turned from being a tragic loss into talking points against Israel:
“Israel is committing genocide.”
“Israel is starving the Palestinians.”
“Israel is preventing aid from getting to the Palestinians.”
These talking points are an inversion of the truth. In each of those talking points, the problem wasn’t Israel, it was Hamas.
Hamas started the war, and were joined by many Palestinian civilians, with the genocidal goal of killing as many Israelis as possible, preferably Jews.
In their original charter, the Hamas Covenant of 1988, article 7 states, “The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.”
Hamas attempted a genocide. When Israel let in aid and food, enough to feed all the Palestinians, Hamas diverted the aid and sold it on the black market, forcing malnourishment upon the Gazans who could not afford the “free” aid. Once Hamas lost major control of Gaza, distribution of the aid became much easier.
But the overall criticism is that Israel did not handle the war against Hamas well. Is that claim a double standard?
War Fatalities of Innocents
While it’s awful to reduce human lives to numbers, it does help put into perspective when actions during wars become war crimes.
The standard evaluation of when a country is being too indiscriminate in their fight is by checking the non-combatant to combatant ratio of fatalities. The UN has given an average ratio of 9:1, meaning for every fighter killed in urban warfare, nine non-fighting civilians were killed.
The Washington DC-based Center for Civilians in Conflict and the NGO Action on Armed Violence report the same ratio.
Here’s how Israel fares in context of other historical situations of urban warfare:
Gaza War (2023-2026)
Side with the Largest Loss of Life: Palestinians
Non-Combatant to Combatant Ratio: ~1:1
Given Reason for the War: To end Hamas aggression and retrieve the hostages.
Battle of Manila (1945)
Side with the Largest Loss of Life: Filipino civilians
Non-Combatant to Combatant Ratio: ~100:1
Given Reason for the War: Allied forces vs. Japanese occupation in WWII, intense urban combat.
Siege of Warsaw (1939)
Side with the Largest Loss of Life: Polish civilians
Non-Combatant to Combatant Ratio: ~18:1
Given Reason for the War: German invasion of Poland, WWII siege.
First Chechen War – Battle of Grozny (1994–95)
Side with the Largest Loss of Life: Chechen civilians & fighters
Non-Combatant to Combatant Ratio: ~5:1
Given Reason for the War: Chechen push for independence vs Russia.
Warsaw Uprising (1944)
Side with the Largest Loss of Life: Polish civilians
Non-Combatant to Combatant Ratio: ~4:1
Given Reason for the War: Polish Home Army uprising against Nazi Germany.
Second Battle of Grozny (1999–2000)
Side with the Largest Loss of Life: Chechen civilians & fighters
Non-Combatant to Combatant Ratio: ~4:1
Given Reason for the War: Russia’s second campaign to retake Chechnya.
Gaza Conflict (2008–2009)
Side with the Largest Loss of Life: Palestinian civilians
Non-Combatant to Combatant Ratio: ~3.5:1
Given Reason for the War: Hamas’ attack of Israel.
Battle of Aleppo (2012–16)
Side with the Largest Loss of Life: Syrian civilians
Non-Combatant to Combatant Ratio: ~3:1
Given Reason for the War: Syrian government & allies vs. rebel forces.
Battle of Mosul (2016–17)
Side with the Largest Loss of Life: Iraqi civilians
Non-Combatant to Combatant Ratio: ~3:1
Given Reason for the War: Iraqi coalition vs. ISIS.
Siege of Chernihiv (2022)
Side with the Largest Loss of Life: Ukrainian civilians
Non-Combatant to Combatant Ratio: ~5:1
Given Reason for the War: Russian invasion, siege of northern city.
Battle of Irpin (2022)
Side with the Largest Loss of Life: Ukrainian civilians
Non-Combatant to Combatant Ratio: ~6:1
Given Reason for the War: Russian offensive on Kyiv region urban area.
The numbers of Palestinians killed were in the tens of thousands. Every civilian casualty of war is horrendous. Given the minimal amount of civilian casualties among the Gazans by the non-combatant to combatant ratio, Israel demonstrated a targeted focus on minimizing the civilian casualty count better than other countries have.
Over 70% of the buildings in Gaza have been destroyed. According to one report, Israel dropped over 220,000 tons of explosives on Gaza, destroying caches of weapons, booby-trapped houses, and terror tunnels. That’s three times as many explosives as the number of war fatalities, combatants and non-combatants combined. Over 96% of Gazans survived the war.
Since the precision of destruction minimizing the civilian death toll doesn’t demonstrate an intent to kill innocent Palestinians in Gaza, antizionists redirected their talking point to claim that Israel instigated a famine.
War Fatalities due to Starvation
Israel has been accused of causing a famine.
While the UN and ActionAid did claim that Gazans were starving to death by November 3rd, 2023, according to Mercy Corps, “By the time a famine has been declared, people are already dying of hunger: There are two deaths per 10,000 people every day, or four child deaths per 10,000 children every day.”
In Gaza, as of October, 2025, “Gaza’s health ministry has said 461 people, including 157 children, have died from complications of malnutrition since the war started, most of them in 2025. Hospitals have been overwhelmed with malnourished children, amid a severe shortage of therapeutic foods, according to the ministry. The U.N. and many independent experts consider figures from the health ministry, which is part of the Hamas-run government, to be most reliable.”
Before October 7, 2023, the population of Gaza was about 2.2 million. By October 13, 2025, the population was still about 2.2 million. Al Jazeera, an anti-Israel news source, claims that in terms of the entire population of Gaza, half of the Gazans are children.
If there have been 304 adults and 157 children (304 + 157 = 461 people) who died from malnutrition over the duration in the first two years of the war, that would be 0.004 adult deaths per 10,000 adults a day, and 0.002 child deaths per 10,000 children every day. Overall, 2 adult deaths and 1 child death per 10,000 people every year and a half.
That’s tragic, but that doesn’t qualify as a famine.
A report put out by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) claiming the existence of famine in Gaza has been debunked by the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT).
A legitimate famine is in Darfur, Sudan where there are over 2 deaths per 10,000 people per day. Where are the protests? Where are the rallies? The outrage is selective.
Aid Delivery
Before Israel, here is the total number of countries in the history of the planet who were expected to provide aid to their attackers:
Zero.
Here’s some clarification on the aid delivery situation during the Gaza War. The claim was that Israel had a blockade preventing any aid from going into Gaza, starving the civilians. Blocking aid to civilians is a war crime. A reasonable claim.
Article 23(2) of the Geneva Convention IV says that the obligation to allow free passage of aid is required but with conditions:
“The obligation of a High Contracting Party to allow the free passage of the consignments indicated in the preceding paragraph is subject to the condition that this Party is satisfied that there are no serious reasons for fearing:
(a) that the consignments may be diverted from their destination,
(b) that the control may not be effective, or
(c) that a definite advantage may accrue to the military efforts or economy of the enemy through the substitution of the above-mentioned consignments for goods which would otherwise be provided or produced by the enemy or through the release of such material, services or facilities as would otherwise be required for the production of such goods.”
In other words, aid must be allowed into the region on the condition that there are no reasons to fear that the aid will be diverted, or that the enemy will benefit from receiving the aid.
Countries are not expected to feed their attackers.
Though Israel had no obligation to do so, they allowed more than the minimum required food and aid into Gaza, according to COGAT. Unfortunately, Israel reported that 25% of the aid was hijacked by Hamas. The UN has said that over 80% of the aid transported within Gaza has been diverted away from their destination.
The point is that only Israel has permitted aid to the citizens of its attackers while also giving the enemy the opportunity to get what they need for Hamas to prolong the war.
Let’s run the sanity test across major wars:
- Germany invaded Poland (1939) → Poland was not expected to feed Germany.
- Japan invaded China → China was not expected to feed Japan.
- Nazi occupied Europe → Occupiers looted, and the victims were not obligated to give the Nazis aid.
- Iraq invaded Kuwait → Kuwait had no duty to supply Iraq.
- Russia invaded Ukraine → Ukraine has no obligation to feed Russian forces.
- Any colonial war, any civil war, any interstate war → Same rule
There is no counterexample.
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Author Biography of Safe Schools for Jewish Students
Ezra Barany, son of a Bronx father and a Dutch mother from Nazi-occupied Netherlands, loves riveting readers with Jewish thrillers. His first two books in The Torah Codes series were award-winning international bestsellers. In his free time, he has eye-opening discussions on the art of writing novels with his wife and book coach Beth Barany. A high school physics teacher, Ezra lives in Oakland with his beloved wife and two cats working on the next book. Ezra, not the cats.
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