Operation Cast Lead: Lowest Ratio of Civlian To Combatant Deaths In History Of Warfare

Jonathan Sacerdoti, director of the Institute for Middle Eastern Democracy, writes in The New Statesman that one of overlooked facts of Israel's Operation Cast Lead is the low ratio of civilian to combatant deaths:

Colonel Richard Kemp, former commander of British troops in Afghanistan, has repeatedly commented that, "during its operation in Gaza, the Israeli Defence Forces did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare." Furthermore, he points out that the steps taken in that conflict by the Israeli Defence Forces to avoid civilian deaths are shown by a study published by the United Nations to have resulted in, by far, the lowest ratio of civilian to combatant deaths in any asymmetric conflict in the history of warfare.