After Oct 7, IDF policy allowed civilian casualties for even the lowest-ranking targets

by Yaniv Kubovich, excerpt reposted from Ha’aretz, Oct. 12 2026

In the first days after the October 7 massacre, Israeli military intelligence personnel were tasked with rebuilding their picture of the enemy’s ground forces, on which, according to their accounts, almost no intelligence had been gathered for months.

“The directive was: ‘Forget everyone on the ground, the battalion commanders, company commanders, fighters. Forget the Nukhba forces. Only brigade commanders and above, and only the rocket units,’” says A., an intelligence soldier responsible for Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip. “We knew nothing about Hamas and its military wing at ground level. On October 7, we started almost from scratch, tracking down their people and their operatives.”

After the attack, that intelligence vacuum, compounded by a profound sense of failure, humiliation and self-recrimination, gave way to a frantic hunt for every scrap of information. A. is one of four soldiers from intelligence and drone units who spoke to Haaretz about the changes they witnessed: a rapid loosening of the criteria for classifying someone as a “terrorist,” a sharp shift in the approach to proportionality and the use of heavy munitions, and a substantial relaxation of the rules governing the killing of uninvolved civilians as “collateral damage” in strikes (emphasis added).

[Now] even the lowest-ranking target justified civilian casualties. Their testimony suggests that the high casualty figures the army calls collateral damage were not isolated mishaps or individual identification errors, but the result of a strike policy stretched to its limits. Haaretz has published similar accounts throughout the three years of war. These policies, combined with an effort to compensate for the intelligence failure of October 7, led the military to turn a blind eye to a civilian toll unlike anything it had ever seen.

One change the soldiers describe after October 7 was the opening of the intelligence apparatus to untrained personnel.

“People arrived at Military Intelligence who weren’t from the unit, reservists who’d never even served in intelligence, brought in from all sorts of places,” says A. “They sat in the Targeting Directorate looking for the most insignificant targets, the small fry, so they could kill them. Anyone displaying Hamas symbols on Facebook or identifying themselves as Hamas was marked as a target. Some were Hamas members, some were fighters too, but they really were small fry.”

D., who served in strike cells, says, “Suddenly, the IDF was striking even the lowest of the low indiscriminately, and everyone had forgotten about conserving ammunition. We were striking Hamas drivers. That’s how far it went.”

A recurring theme in the accounts is the gap between a target’s importance, the scale of the strike and the civilian toll deemed acceptable. On October 31, 2023, for example, Israeli Air Force planes dropped heavy bombs on a large compound in the Jabalya refugee camp. The target was Ibrahim Biari, commander of Hamas’ central battalion in Jabalya.

“We knew Biari was underground, beneath several large buildings, but we couldn’t pinpoint which building he was under,” says D. “So they chose several buildings that were still occupied and decided to bring down all the buildings above the tunnel he was in. We didn’t initiate an evacuation because it was important to kill him before he could get away.”

A says, “As time went on, we realized the death toll was around 250. I remember being stunned that we were bringing down several densely populated buildings, killing and injuring hundreds of people, to kill a battalion commander who, just a few weeks earlier, hadn’t even been someone we were supposed to gather intelligence on.”

[The article describes several incidents in which the official IDF explanation downplayed the casualties or explained them away.] Destruction in Beit Lahia in northern Gaza last year. “Protecting the troops took priority, which is understandable, but the numbers kept growing and became unreasonable,” says a soldier. (Jehad Alshrafi / AP) “You can’t authorize the potential killing of 300 civilians for a battalion commander [referring to the assassination of Biari], or the killing of 20 civilians for every Hamas truck driver, and still tell the public we did everything we could to avoid harming innocent people,” says Nadav Weiman, executive director of Breaking the Silence.

The Israeli veterans’ organization collects and publishes soldiers’ testimonies about military conduct in the West Bank and Gaza.

According to D., no one questioned whether the operational justification for killing a Hamas commander warranted harming so many civilians in that particular strike. Exceptional approvals and heavy bloodshed appeared to have become routine, part of a system that no longer prompted questions.

Another example raised in the accounts is the assassination of Ali Qadi, a company commander in Hamas’ elite Nukhba commando force, whom the IDF identified as one of the leaders of the murderous October 7 attack at the Erez crossing.

“He was at home with his family, and they decided to kill him,” says A. “The IDF rushed to announce that he’d been eliminated and how important he was, but Qadi was actually the only one who survived the strike. None of those killed had anything to do with the target. He himself was killed only later.”

According to drone operators who spoke to Haaretz during the war, strike policy in the Zik drone units was divided into three main tiers. The first, the “limited” tier, permitted strikes only in response to a direct, immediate threat to troops. The second, the “restricted” tier, also allowed strikes on people providing assistance, intelligence personnel and lookouts. The third, the “expanded” tier, allowed strikes on anyone considered affiliated with Hamas, currently or in the past.

The military also defined the levels of collateral damage permitted without exceptional approval. “Minimal collateral damage” meant no casualties among people near the target. Level 1 allowed up to five uninvolved casualties; Level 2, up to 10; Level 3, up to 20; and Level 4, up to 40.

According to B., who served in the drone units throughout the war, the default from the outset was the expanded tier and collateral damage Level 3. In other words, strikes that could harm 20 civilians required no approval from a senior officer outside the strike cell. Strikes exceeding that threshold were classified as exceptional, with decisions referred to major generals and the chief of staff.

C., an intelligence soldier, says that several months into the ground offensive, his strike cell was ordered to prepare an entry zone into Gaza City for an advancing division. Several high-rise buildings in the area were considered a threat to the soldiers.

“We did the calculation and came up with 1,000 people [likely still in the buildings]. But they didn’t approve collateral damage of 1,000. What they approved was to start striking and let the residents flee while the operation was underway…Protecting the troops took priority, which is understandable, but the numbers kept growing and became unreasonable.”

The soldiers’ accounts also describe how operational instructions became rigid rules that led to almost automatic strikes while leaving considerable room for error. In combat zones, for example, the presence of any adult male within a few hundred meters of Israeli troops would trigger preparations for a strike. If approval came, the strike went ahead.

Generally, anyone approaching within 300 meters of the troops was considered a threat and targeted. But the ability to distinguish details from the air is far more limited than it might appear.

“When you spot a figure, it can be really hard to tell whether it’s a 60-year-old or a 12-year-old boy,” explains B., who served in the drone units.

As living conditions in Gaza deteriorated, Palestinians began entering abandoned homes or buildings damaged in strikes to retrieve blankets, beds, chairs and food. IDF units labeled them “looters.” But according to the interviewees, the military also treated anyone entering a building in a combat zone as a potential threat who might plant an explosive device or gather intelligence on the troops. These residents were therefore marked for attack.

During the war, Haaretz reported that some Palestinians returned to or remained in their own homes to protect their belongings from looting, leaving them exposed to attack.

The most profound breaking point described in the accounts came when negotiations over the cease-fire’s next phase stalled and Israel resumed full-scale fighting in March 2025, followed by Operation Gideon’s Chariots in May.

“The claim that the IDF approved a strike in advance that was expected to kill hundreds of uninvolved civilians is false and entirely baseless. Throughout the war in Gaza, there was not a single such strike, nor has any serious claim been made that a strike carried out by the IDF caused hundreds of deaths.

“The October 31, 2023 strike targeted a command-and-control center that the Hamas terrorist organization had located in a populated area of Jabalya. It was staffed by a group of military operatives, including Ibrahim Biari, a battalion commander in the military wing who directed the fighting in Israel and had previously played a significant role in planning and carrying out the October 7 attack. The anticipated military advantage of the strike was substantial. Nevertheless, the strike was sent back for replanning several times to reduce its area of impact and the anticipated harm to civilians, which ultimately was not in the hundreds.

“After the strike, reports that the IDF did not independently verify alleged that the harm exceeded its preliminary assessment. The Air Force immediately investigated the strike, and additional examinations were conducted. The findings established retrospectively, partly on the basis of other intelligence, that Hamas had dug numerous underground passages in the area that were unknown to the IDF and caused buildings to collapse unexpectedly.

“The IDF’s strike planning and approval process is structured and consists of multiple stages involving weapons specialists and intelligence, legal, operational and other personnel. It is unclear who told the reporter that such a casualty figure was anticipated, what their roles were or how much personal knowledge they had of the matter.

“Their error may stem from having known or heard about general occupancy estimates for the area in the early stages of the process, without having been involved in the many subsequent stages intended to drastically reduce the scope of the strike and its area of impact. During strike planning, strikes are often focused on specific components of a target, the weapons or timing are adjusted, and updated information is received about civilians evacuating following warnings issued by the IDF. It is also possible that these people shared conjecture or rumors about matters in which they had no personal involvement. In any event, the claim is baseless.

“As for the claim that the criteria were loosened, automatic advance approval has never been given to strike different categories of operatives on the basis of a predetermined number of civilians who would be harmed. For every strike, the commander approving it is required to assess individually whether it is expected to be proportionate under international humanitarian law.”

Yaniv Kubovich is Ha’aretz’s military correspondent.

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