Hamas Ammo Dumps in Gaza Homes Pose Dilemma for IDF
The Israeli military faces a complex challenge in Gaza, where Hamas frequently stores weapons and explosives within densely populated civilian areas, including residential buildings, schools, and near mosques and hospitals. The IDF reported in February 2024 the destruction of several such weapon caches, noting secondary explosions that indicated large quantities of munitions. In Khan Younis, forces discovered dozens of rockets and explosives, while in Rafah, grenades, explosives, and anti-tank missiles were found in a residential home, with a tunnel shaft located under a child's bed. Another underground weapons depot was found under a residential building in Rafah in July, and a similar cache containing drones and mortar shells was discovered near a mosque and hospital in November, later dismantled by engineering troops.
These findings are not new. UN and UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) personnel documented weapons stored in empty schools in Gaza as early as July 2014, even when thousands of displaced civilians were sheltering in nearby schools. The article asserts that the presence of weapons among civilian infrastructure is not a post-October 7th fabrication but a documented reality predating the current conflict.
The article questions how these weapons are placed in civilian areas, stating that munitions do not relocate themselves. Under international humanitarian law, a civilian building used as a weapons storage site can become a legitimate military target. However, civilians in proximity do not become combatants, obligating the attacking force to consider civilian casualties. This creates a paradox: while rockets in a home make it a military target, its residents do not automatically become legitimate targets.
Furthermore, ammunition depots pose a risk of secondary explosions, which can be unpredictable even for the attacking military. This issue is characteristic of urban warfare, as seen in the 2017 battles for Mosul and Raqqa. In Mosul, ISIS embedded fighters among civilians, using them as human shields, leading to thousands of civilian deaths according to Amnesty International, which also criticized the coalition for using weapons with excessive risk to civilians. Similarly, in Raqqa, ISIS used civilians as shields while the US-led coalition and Kurdish-Arab forces conducted strikes, resulting in significant civilian casualties and alleged violations by both sides.
The article concludes that Gaza's dense urban environment, large civilian population, and Hamas's integration of military infrastructure into this setting present an extreme version of urban warfare. Destroying a weapons depot in a residential area offers no easy solution: not destroying it leaves weapons for the enemy, warning residents alerts Hamas, and a ground assault endangers soldiers and initiates a firefight. The author argues that discussions of civilian casualties are incomplete if they begin with the destroyed building and the Israeli bomb, omitting the preceding decisions: Hamas's choice to store weapons near civilians and the IDF's decision to strike the cache. Neither decision automatically justifies the other, and civilians caught between these actions are the collateral damage.
