Airstrikes in Gaza that killed dozens of Palestinians, including women and children, used an American-made precision-guided bomb that targets specific targets and, ideally, limits civilian casualties.
The weapon, the GBU-39, or small diameter bomb, was used in an attack on a former United Nations school on Thursday and in a May 26 attack in Rafah. In both cases, the Israeli military defended its actions, saying the attacks targeted militants who were using civilians as human shields. Gaza health authorities said civilians had also been killed and that there were videos and photographs of women and children among the dead.
Two weapons experts told the New York Times that Israel appears to have increased its use of bombs since early this year, compared to the early days of the war, when it dropped them in only 10 percent of airstrikes on Gaza. As a recent series of Israeli attacks demonstrates, even a relatively small bomb can cause serious civilian casualties.
“The thing is, even using a smaller weapon, or using a precision-guided weapon, doesn’t mean you won’t kill civilians, and it doesn’t mean all your attacks are suddenly legal,” said Brian Castner, a weapons expert at International Amnesty.
Early in the war, the Israeli army mounted large-scale invasions of Gaza cities with tanks, artillery, and 2,000-pound bombs, earning international condemnation for heavy civilian casualties.
Under pressure from the Biden administration, analysts said, Israel has shifted its combat strategy toward low-intensity operations and targeted raids, and is now relying more on the GBU-39. The bomb weighs 250 pounds, including 37 pounds of explosives, and is fired from fighter jets.
Ryan Brobst, a military analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the change appeared to begin in January or February and “probably explains the change in munitions used.”
Last month, an unexploded GBU-39 was found at a school in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, and the distinctive tail fin of the same type of bomb appeared at the site of an attack on May 13, more to the south, against a family home and school in Nuseirat in which up to 30 people died.
And remains of GBU-39 appeared outside residential houses that were hit by deadly Israeli airstrikes in Rafah in April, at an unidentified location in Gaza in March, and in Tal-Al Sultan in January, analysts said.
These examples of Israel’s use of GBU-39s represent only a fraction of what experts estimate have been, overall, at least tens of thousands of airstrikes using a variety of weapons. But debris found after the airstrikes and requests to replenish Israel’s stockpile indicate that Israel has clearly stepped up its use of the GBU-39, several analysts said.
“We’ve seen a lot more GBU-39 scrap in recent months,” Castner said. “The trend has been from high to low.” (However, he said, Amnesty researchers continue to see evidence of large munitions such as the Mark-80 series, which weigh up to 2,000 pounds and were dropped into densely populated areas early in the war.)
Only the Israeli military has a precise list of how often and where it has used GBU-39s since the war began in October, after Hamas militants killed 1,200 Israelis and took 250 hostages, Israel says. Israeli military officials did not answer questions about the weapon in Gaza, but said in a written statement to the New York Times on Thursday that “when the type of target and operational circumstances allow, the IDF prefers to use lighter ammunition.”
The statement goes on to say: “The ammunition chosen by the IDF is chosen so that the type of ammunition matches the specific objective, with the intention of achieving the military objective while taking into account the environment and mitigating harm to the population.” civilian population as much as possible.”
During the first six weeks of the war, Israel routinely dropped 2,000-pound bombs on southern Gaza, where civilians had been ordered to move for their safety. The attacks reduced apartment buildings to huge craters and killed thousands of people, a Times investigation concluded in December.
In November, US officials urged Israel to use smaller bombs to better protect civilians. Just a month earlier, GBU-39 maker Boeing Corp. had accelerated delivery of 1,000 weapons from a 2021 order that had not yet been completed.
In December, President Biden warned Israel that it was losing global support in the war due to “the indiscriminate bombings that are occurring.”
“We have made it clear to the Israelis, and they are aware, that the safety of innocent Palestinians remains a matter of grave concern,” Biden said on December 12. “And that’s why the actions they are taking must be consistent.” with trying to do everything possible to prevent innocent Palestinian civilians from being injured, killed, murdered or lost.”
But even the smallest bombs have caused collateral damage.
The first known use of GBU-39s in the current war was on October 24 in Khan Younis, where two family homes were hit by four of the bombs, one expert said.
In January, Israel attacked the top two floors of a five-story residential building in Rafah shortly before 11 p.m. It killed 18 civilians, including four women and 10 children, according to an Amnesty International investigation that concluded that the bomb used in the attack was a GBU-39. It was one of the examples compiled in April by Amnesty International of the potentially illegal use of American-made weapons in Israel, dating back to January 2023.
The State Department concluded in May that Israel most likely violated humanitarian rules by failing to protect civilians in Gaza, but said it had found no specific cases that justified withholding U.S. military aid.
Current and former U.S. officials said Israel generally does not share information about its use of GBU-39s with Washington, and a State Department system created in August to track civilian deaths from U.S.-made weapons in foreign conflicts has struggled to track civilian deaths. compile a complete list. A U.S. official said the May 26 airstrike in Rafah was being investigated as part of the new process to determine whether the use of U.S. weapons violates humanitarian laws.
Israel has been deploying GBU-39s since 2008, using them in Gaza, Syria and Lebanon. The bombs have a range of at least 40 miles and are guided by GPS with coordinates for specific targets set before the weapons are launched. Experts say the GBU-39 is so precise that it can hit specific rooms inside buildings.
The United States has delivered at least 9,550 GBU-39s to Israel since 2012, including 1,000 sent last fall under the expedited order, according to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, which tracks arms transfers. Brobst, of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said more have probably been sent since then.
Most attack aircraft can carry eight GBU-39s at a time, and each can be guided independently toward multiple targets. That makes them an efficient weapon for Israel’s military, said NR Jenzen-Jones, director of Armament Research Services.
However, in terms of limiting civilian casualties, “it’s not a panacea,” Jenzen-Jones said. “It may be small compared to other aerial bombs, but the small diameter bomb still has a significant impact.”
Myra Noveck contributed reports from Jerusalem, and Eric Schmitt from Washington.