Was Israel’s response to Oct 7 disproportionate?

Israel has repeatedly been accused of a disproportionate response to Hamas’s atrocities on and after October 7, 2023.

These accusations have been fuelled by emotive (and unsubstantiated) casualty counts and by a superficial grasp of moral and legal standards. Critics have made unjustified accusations based on moral equivalence – invoking images of suffering Gazans to equate Israel’s defensive campaign with the barbarism it combats. As a principle of the ethics of war, proportionality demands a nuanced calculus: the evils produced by force must not exceed those eliminated, weighing military necessity against foreseeable harm. I argue that Israel’s operation is not disproportionate but aligns rigorously with this criterion, confronting a genocidal foe while implementing unprecedented safeguards for civilians. Hamas’s savagery, not Israel’s restraint, bears the moral burden for the tragedy.

The principle of proportionality requires that force not produce evil effects graver than the threats or evil being confronted. What is also important is the foundational principle, jus ad bellum, which does not consider first the raw numbers of casualties, but the gravity of the threat. Hamas’s assault – massacring 1200 Israelis, including infants, the elderly, and festival-goers; raping and mutilating women; abducting 250 hostages; and vowing in its 1988 charter to eradicate Jews worldwide – constitutes an existential evil and an ongoing grave threat to Israelis and Jewish people worldwide.

Hamas official Ghazi Hamad’s post-attack boast of repeating October 7 a thousand times underscores its genocidal blueprint – invoking hadiths calling for the annihilation of all Jewish people. Hamas’s genocidal intent elevated the stakes beyond a short-term skirmish to ultimate annihilation, which mandates a response that neutralises the threat comprehensively. As Christian scholar George Weigel notes, against popular misconceptions, just war ethics begins not with a presumption against violence but with a “moral obligation” of authorities to defend innocents against evil. Israel’s aim of dismantling Hamas’s military infrastructure and rescuing hostages vindicates this cause, rendering lesser measures futile and capitulation suicidal.

Critics of Israel have erred by conflating proportionality with symmetry. Proportionality refers to the measures necessary to defeat the threat, not the number of victims. There is no need for Israel’s airstrikes or tank fire to mirror Hamas’s rifles or rockets. Instead, international humanitarian law permits escalation in force type if it advances the just objective. As seen throughout the response to Hamas, the Israel Defence Forces conduct such assessments for every strike, balancing civilian risk against “military advantage”, amplified here by Hamas’s unprecedented depravity.

The IDF’s precautions further refute disproportionality claims. The IDF has exceeded the norms of humanitarian law by issuing multilingual warnings via leaflets, texts and “roof-knocking” munitions, all enabling evacuations from northern Gaza southward. Israel has used precision-guided munitions, satellite and phone scans for civilian presence, and even delayed advances to allow safe passage. These efforts distinguish Israel’s ethic from Hamas’s contempt for life.

Casualty figures, often cited as proof of excess, crumble under scrutiny. Hamas’s Gaza Health Ministry – unverified by independent bodies – reports over 71,000 deaths, but even these inflated tallies reveal a civilian-to-combatant ratio far below urban warfare averages (eg. US operations in Mosul yielded 1:1 or worse). Moreover, Hamas blurs lines: UNRWA staff implicated in October 7, hospital “employees” as Qassam Brigades operatives, and civilians manufacturing arms or celebrating murders forfeit noncombatant status. Human shields – Palestinians coerced or complicit in guarding rocket sites, mosques-as-bunkers, or tunnels – shift culpability to the shielders. Indeed, the more Hamas embeds amid innocents, the less proportionality limits the just defender; responsibility for exposure falls on the evil organisation that is exploiting the innocents.

This asymmetry indicts Hamas, not Israel. By firing from schools and hospitals, embedding command centres under aid hubs, and glorifying civilian deaths, Hamas manufactures tragedy for propaganda, exploiting Western aversion to collateral damage. Civilian casualties in Gaza are tragic. But they have occurred in the context of a fight that, if restricted to futile half-measures, would embolden Hamas’s rearmament, perpetuating cycles of rocket barrages and lethal incursions.

Rather than being morally disproportionate, Israel’s response to October 7 has embodied the principles of just war theory by protecting the vulnerable from genocidal zealots. Calls for restraint, while well-intentioned, confuse proportionality with symmetry and create false equivalence. Israel’s response, proportionate in intent, execution and outcome, dismantles evil without birthing graver disorders. The true disproportion lies in Hamas’s bloodlust which is a crime against humanity demanding unqualified rebuke, not relativisation.

Professor Matthew Ogilvie is chairperson of Friends of Israel Western Australia.