I want to ask for clarification on a few things, keeping in mind I'm trying to formulate a standard of expectation for moral (legal) behaviour by governments, according to your perspective.
What do you consider "the beginning"? The day of the attack? As part of a moral response to an invasion and attack? After a perimeter of some sort is secured? Within the first week? Month? When typically available necessities are reduced to the extent that aid is needed? How is that measured? Or do you mean that all the grocery stores and markets must be fully stocked at all times during a conflict?
When Israel decided to impose a seige on Gaza that included food.
What do you mean by "allow access"? Is it sufficient to not prevent aid from entering through borders with sovereign nations not party to the conflict? Or is the attacked State required to provide access to aid corridors within their own territory?
No. The attacked state controls roughly 80% of the land border and it controls the entire coastline. The only bit that isn’t is in the far south. There is no logistical way for enough aid to enter from there to reach much of Gaza, particularly if the attacked state is blocking it from within Gaza with combat operations. The statement:
Is it sufficient to not prevent aid from entering through borders with sovereign nations not party to the conflict?
In the context of the reality of the situation disengenius given the attacked state specifically stated it would block the entry of food and it controls most of the border.
Is the attacked State permitted to inspect the aid to ensure there are no weapons, or dual use products? How much time does it take to set up the inspections? How does this affect the use of resources needed during the conflict?
I suspect inspections can be done with help by entities other than the attacked state to speed up the process (allies). Other than the first question, the rest are not answerable and rely on conjecture.
I'll come back to this.
Details? What did Israel do, specifically, at the beginning of the war that was different than later on? Were there more civilian fatalities at the beginning of the war? How do we know this? What were the conditions?
The use of large numbers massive “dumb bombs” is one, however, neither of us is privy to what is being recommended and said between Israel and its allies, we can only guess based on what is reported afterwards. Why would recommendations be made (by military and security professionals, not you or I) to reduce civilian casualties if Israel was already doing every thing possible? Why would Israel’s staunchest allies express concern? Why would Israel change anything if they were a,ready doing everything “right”?
Civilian fatality rates over time is answerable, the rest is not because we don’t have access to the data.
I'll come back to this one too. Too much for one post.
What would those alternative strategies be? I am especially interested in alternative strategies which would be less destructive to (civilian) life.
You’ve asked me this before and I‘ve responded before, with my responses based on what government officials who have been meeting with their Israeli counterparts have recommended (and it is very general). Neither of us are military experts.
Infrastructure is much trickier, given the tunnels and use of civilian infrastructure for military purposes. What do you suggest?
Fair question, I don’t actually know. Flooding tunnels with seawater was proposed at one time.
