A-Infos (en) Poland, FA: Bombing civilians - from Guernica to Gaza (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

No one has any doubts that we are once again dealing with an increase in 
both the number of armed conflicts and the direct victims of wars. The 
war in Ukraine and Palestine, but also in Lebanon, Yemen and Congo, has 
caused a significant increase in the number of direct casualties, both 
on the side of the combatants and civilians. Some statistics suggest 
that their total number is the highest since at least the beginning of 
this century. At the same time, the conflicts mentioned above once again 
illustrate the brutality of war.
More and more civilian casualties
In the early 1990s, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, one could hear 
opinions that wars were becoming a thing of the past, that no country 
would take up arms in the name of defending its interests. Everything - 
it was said - would be resolved through peaceful talks and through the 
efforts of diplomats. Even if local conflicts still break out, they are 
very limited in nature and result from a certain type of social atavism. 
More people - it was argued - die as a result of ethnic or religious 
pogroms, internal conflicts, than as a result of interstate conflicts. 
However, this observation is no longer valid - if it ever was.

Another optimistic thought was that in interstate conflicts, even if 
they do occur, not so many people die. After Nuremberg, the rigor of 
international law regarding the rules of warfare and the precision of 
modern weapons with which today's armies are equipped mean that a blow 
is dealt to the enemy without unnecessary casualties, especially 
civilians. For example, Alvin and Heidi Toffler wrote in the early 1990s 
in their book entitled "War and Anti-War" about the demassification of 
war that weapons are sought that minimize lethality and destruction. 
Unfortunately, this observation is also highly questionable. What we are 
currently seeing in Ukraine and Palestine contradicts this.

Quite the opposite. We can say that with the development of war 
technology, the invention of all kinds of weapons of mass destruction, 
historically speaking, wars are becoming increasingly brutal. Especially 
the so-called systemic wars such as: the Thirty Years' War in the 17th 
century, the Seven Years' War in the 18th century, the Napoleonic Wars, 
and finally the last World War I and II. What is more - as other 
analysts report - it is estimated that at the beginning of the 20th 
century, 90% of war victims were soldiers, while at the end of the 
century the same percentage were civilians[1].

Air warfare
In the 20th century, air attacks became especially common and deadly, 
which stopped distinguishing between civilians and soldiers. And even 
more - the concept of total armed conflict has penetrated the war 
doctrines of states. According to it, the enemy must be destroyed, not 
only the armed forces, but also the demographic and economic potential. 
The enemy must suffer from hunger, die from disease, bleed out as a 
result of wounds and lack of medical assistance. If this terrible 
suffering and death came from the air, the military simply spoke of 
"strategic bombing". The fathers of this type of "air warfare" are 
considered to be Generals Giulio Douhet and Hugh Trenchard - an Italian 
and a British. A hundred years ago, they claimed that in the coming 
wars, the bombing of population centers would be the norm, and other 
forms of using aviation were, according to them, to impair its potential.

During World War I, air attacks did not yet have such significance and 
were most often carried out on the front line, against military targets. 
However, even then, attempts were made to bomb - for example, using 
airships - seaports and railway junctions behind enemy lines. However, 
their effectiveness was limited. The total destruction of cities from 
the air, however, began even before World War II, symbolized by 
Guernica, which was wiped off the face of the earth during the war in 
Spain by the German and Italian air forces in 1937. Both fascist states 
supported the forces of General Franco. 70% of the city's buildings were 
destroyed. There are very divergent estimates of the number of people 
killed, but it was certainly several hundred to over 1.5 thousand, out 
of about 8 thousand people staying there. This brutal attack on the 
Basque city was deliberate.

In September 1939, German air raids on Warsaw had already caused the 
deaths of - depending on the estimate - several to a dozen or so 
thousand civilians. German bombings of Belgrade in March 1941 caused 
similar losses among civilians.

Although the army of Nazi Germany committed many other unprecedented 
murders of civilians, so that innocent victims can be counted in the 
millions, the forces of the anti-fascist coalition did not remain 
indebted. As early as May 1940, Winston Churchill was to decide on 
bombing raids on German cities. Over time, they intensified. On the 
night of July 27-28, 1943, a raid was carried out on Hamburg. In that 
one night alone, 50,000 civilians died, many in terrible agony, burning 
alive or slowly dying under the rubble rather than from bomb fragments. 
An even larger bombing took place in February 1945 in Dresden. The 
infamous raid killed about 100,000 people. As we remember, the Red Army 
also razed German cities to the ground on its way to Berlin and had no 
regard for civilian lives.

The Americans, in turn, carried out the famous carpet bombing of Tokyo, 
which took place at the beginning of 1945. Incendiary bombs led to a 
firestorm, as a result of which hundreds of thousands of buildings 
burned down. Over 80,000 civilians died in the flames (some estimates 
say as many as 120,000). Finally, the dropping of atomic bombs on 
Hiroshima and Nagasaki - ultimately, first from the shock wave and fire, 
and then also as a result of injuries and radiation sickness, several 
hundred thousand civilians lost their lives[2].

Also during the Vietnam War, the American Air Force carried out numerous 
air raids not only on North Vietnam, but also on Laos and Cambodia. 
Hundreds of millions of bombs and napalm were dropped. The losses among 
the civilian population were of course enormous[3].

Without protection
Immediately after World War II, it was realized that the protection of 
civilians had become a fiction. This was confirmed de facto by every 
subsequent major conflict. Georg Schwarzenberger, one of the leading 
British experts in international law, stated that the distinction 
between soldiers and civilians had been systematically blurred. Various 
categories of civilians began to be considered legitimate targets of 
attacks. The destructive power of the atomic bomb dropped on Japan 
clearly demonstrates this. Nagendra Singh, one of India's leading 
experts in the field of national law, was to state in 1959 that World 
War II de facto eliminated legal protection for civilians[2].

Moreover, prominent politicians clearly declared that no norms and 
values apply. "We must dispense with any sentimentality, we must stop 
thinking about human rights, raising the standard of living and 
democratization"[3]. These words were formulated by George Kennan, a 
famous American diplomat, strategist and geopolitician, advisor to 
President Ronald Reagan, in 1948.

In the Middle East
For decades, Israel was considered a democratic, liberal and civilized 
Western-style state surrounded in the Middle East by "Arab barbarians" 
threatening the Jews who survived after World War II. From the very 
beginning, the authorities of this state complied with Kennan's 
directive. Israel was created as a result of wartime aggression, ethnic 
cleansing and the murder of innocent civilians. However, since its 
creation, it enjoyed almost unconditional support, first mainly from 
France, and then from the USA.

Of course, the other side did not remain indifferent. Palestinians 
killed both Israeli soldiers and civilians in retaliation. However, the 
disproportions from the beginning of this conflict have always remained 
unchanged. For every murdered Jew, there are many more civilian 
casualties among the Palestinian population: women, children, and the 
elderly. Reliable data shows that, for example, from 2008 to 2022, 6,107 
Palestinians and 289 Israelis[4]were killed - approximately 20 times 
less. Let us add that under international law, Israel occupies 
Palestinian lands.

The current Israeli army, in retaliation for the crime committed by 
Hamas on October 7, 2023, a crime that was of course a consequence of 
the spiral of violence between the antagonistic parties, began 
systematically bombing the civilian population of the Gaza Strip. In 
these air raids and bombings, over 55,000 people have died to date, and 
if we count those declared missing (probably lying dead under the 
rubble), the number will be several thousand more[5]. The vast majority 
of those killed are women and children.

Moreover, these are only direct victims of the war in Gaza. If indirect 
victims caused by hunger, disease and lack of humanitarian aid, 
deliberately withheld by Israel, were added to this, the numbers would 
be three or even four times higher[6]. The extermination of civilians in 
Gaza continues and there is no end in sight to the bombings.

Jaroslaw Urbanski

www.rozbrat.org

Footnotes:

[1]Cheyney Ryan, "Pacifism as War Abolitionism", New York 2024.

[2]I quote data on bombings during World War II mainly from: Sven 
Lindqvist, "Juz nie zyciasz. Historia bombowania", Warsaw 2023.

[3]https://instytutsprawobywatelskich.pl/bombardujemy-dla-pokoju-specjalna-operacja-wojskowa-usa-w-kambodzy/

[4]https://www.ochaopt.org/data/casualties#

[5]Al Jazeera provides the current number of victims: 
https://www.aljazeera.com/tag/israel-palestine-conflict/

[6]https://prawy.pl/131074-Lancet-W-Gazie-zginelo-186-000-Palestynczykow

https://federacja-anarchistyczna.pl/2025/06/17/zbombardowac-cywilow-od-guerniki-do-gazy/
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