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PDF FormatBeyond these pitfalls, invading forces must also assign a large number of soldiers to house-to-house and room-to-room searches. A building that has been captured but not fully secured can easily become a hideout for enemy soldiers, who can then attack advancing forces from the rear. Preventing this means leaving a considerable number of troops behind at every stage—enough to repel a local assault on the rear and flanks of the main force.13 As the history of modern urban warfare shows, capturing cities and other heavily populated areas requires the deployment of vast forces, with entire divisions frequently concentrated in an extremely small area.14 According to conventional military thinking, the attacking side should have a numerical advantage of at least three to one in normal terrain to ensure victory; in cities and towns, that ratio must be far greater to compensate for the advantage held by defensive forces. Russian combat doctrine, for example, maintains that the occupation of a town requires a numerical advantage of at least six to one.15
Nor does the use of massive firepower, such as heavy artillery or aerial bombings, necessarily offer a workable solution even if one disregards the heavy civilian casualties involved. On the contrary: Demolished buildings block roads with rubble, leaving them impassable to military vehicles and complicating orientation for advancing forces. Ruins can also serve as convenient cover for the city’s defenders.16 Nor has experience shown heavy shelling to be particularly effective against forces that have taken positions in buildings: First, stone and concrete structures are highly resistant to tank and artillery fire, and considerable accuracy is required to demolish them. Second, cannon and tank shells travel toward their target in a relatively flat arc, and are prone to missing enemy positions in bunkers. Cannon shells, moreover, often miss the lower floors of buildings, while tank shells tend to miss the upper floors. Last, the close proximity of the opposing sides in city fighting makes it difficult to hit a target without endangering nearby friendly forces.17
In other words, the peculiar constraints of urban combat can neutralize most of the advantages held by an invading force, even one that is numerically or technologically superior. But there is a further consideration, one that makes the decision to attack a city even more difficult: The presence of large numbers of non-combatants in the battle zone.
Most advancing armies have no interest in finding civilians in their path. As a rule, regular armies prefer to fight against an armed adversary in clearly defined conditions, which allow them to fire on anything that moves. Unless the advancing forces are deliberately targeting civilians18—a policy that is virtually unthinkable for the armies of civilized countries—their presence in the battle area complicates things considerably. An invading force has a duty to avoid unnecessary harm to civilians, but at the same time, civilians can become tools in the hands of the enemy, willingly or not. This is especially true when the enemy “army” is made up of irregular forces, which capitalize on the other side’s difficulty in distinguishing soldiers from civilians. A man dressed in civilian clothes may in fact be a fighter waiting for the opportunity to strike. He might also be a saboteur or spy in the enemy’s service. Or he might be an innocent civilian being used as a human shield.
The rules of modern combat, as set out in international treaties, attempt to introduce some order into this chaotic context. They insist, for example, that combatants consider the safety of civilians and remove them, if possible, from harm’s way; they call on armed forces to prevent looting, riots, and other criminal acts; and they demand that all parties allow humanitarian aid to reach those in need. These guidelines also seek to distinguish between “permitted” and “prohibited” actions that an army is likely to take when fighting in residential areas. For instance, it is considered legitimate to shell or bomb military targets, including homes and even hospitals, if enemy forces have taken up positions there. However, needlessly damaging structures in which there are no enemy soldiers is prohibited, as is the use of excessive force in carrying out a task. The Hague Convention of 1907 specifically states that “the attack or bombardment of towns, villages, habitations, or buildings which are not defended is prohibited,” and that “in sieges and bombardments all necessary steps should be taken” to preserve buildings used for worship, art, medical purposes, and the like, “provided they are not used at the same time for military purposes.”19
At first glance, these restrictions seem reasonable. In the mayhem of urban fighting, however, they are often impracticable. When a densely populated area suddenly becomes a war zone, it is always a nightmare for civilians caught in the action. It is almost a given that many will be injured or killed, and that property damage will be significant. The refinements of modern weaponry over the past century have also increased the potential for what is called “collateral damage,” a euphemism for the widespread death and destruction that results from attacks on military targets. Heavy bombing, long-range artillery, tank and missile fire, land mines, booby-trapped houses, and a host of other evils are likely to be visited upon the civilian population.20
It is for this reason that political and military leaders strongly prefer to avoid urban combat if at all possible. Invading a city or town not only makes enormous demands on the skills and resources of the invading force, but it also exacts a heavy price from both sides—and especially from civilians. Reluctance to fight in urban conditions has therefore had a real impact on strategic and political decision-making on countless occasions. A well-known example is the Israeli siege of Beirut in 1982, in which Israeli forces, after deftly conquering the entire southern third of Lebanon, refrained from invading the capital.
But sometimes an attack on a city cannot be avoided. Regular armies, even those with the most humane of intentions, have in recent years been required to attack cities and towns on a number of occasions. All too often, the result was an unmitigated human disaster.
III
Given the nature of urban combat, any fair evaluation of the IDF’s behavior in Jenin should begin not only with a clear picture of the difficulties involved, but also with an account of how other armies have acted in similar circumstances. For this purpose, there is no need to go far back into history, as the last decade alone provides us with three instructive examples: The Russian army’s assault on Grozny, Chechnya; the NATO bombing of Kosovo; and the UN mission in Mogadishu, Somalia. Each, of course, had its own dynamic: In the first case, the invading army was intent on imposing its authority on a rebellious province; in the second, military action was meant to prevent war crimes; and in the third, an international force sought to make peace among warring factions and ensure that humanitarian aid reached the needy. The combat objectives of each of these armies were completely different, yet in each case the military operation resulted in extensive losses among the civilian population, whose homes suddenly became the center of a war zone.
Of the three examples, the invasion of Grozny was undoubtedly the most brutal. Two wars were fought in Chechen territory in the last decade: The first began in December 1994 and lasted almost two years, ending in the defeat and withdrawal of the Russian army. The second, which began in September 1999 and continues to this day, started out as a Russian retaliation for ongoing Chechen terrorist activity. In both cases, the Chechen city of Grozny, once home to more than 300,000 people, suffered extensive damage.
In the first battle of Grozny, an unpleasant surprise awaited the Russian army. The initial invading force was ill prepared for Chechen resistance, which succeeded in wiping out nearly two full Russian brigades, and killing 1,500 to 2,000 soldiers. Reeling and humbled, the Russians changed their tactics. Their next offensive was more careful, and depended heavily on artillery and aerial bombing. At the peak of the bombing, four thousand shells per hour pounded the city, a level of bombardment unknown since World War II. While it is not clear that the massive bombing did much to weaken the Chechens’ resolve,21 there is no doubt that the civilian population in Grozny suffered horribly, with conservative estimates putting the number of civilian dead at five thousand, and others claiming a figure five times as high.22 Half of Grozny was reduced to rubble, including the neighborhoods that housed the Russian citizens whose “liberation” was a major aim of the offensive.23 A Russian woman told of how she lost ten friends at the hands of the invading forces, who “didn’t care what they were hitting.” A Chechen civilian who initially supported the offensive later described the Russian soldiers as “extremely savage—hysterical, terrified, drunken—they would kill for no reason at all.”24
