For those like President Higgins, no charge against Israel seems outlandish or even worthy of scrutiny. But the facts, and the actual laws war criminals are charged with violating, tell a very different story. On December 26, 2024, the New York Times published an article titled “Israel Loosened Its Rules to Bomb Hamas Fighters, Killing Many More Civilians,” with a subtitle calling the aerial campaign in Gaza “one of the deadliest bombardments of the 21st century.” I read the article at the time, and didn’t find it so much to be misleading as to demonstrate the care the IDF took to limit civilian casualties amid a severe national emergency.

For why would an army intent on killing as many people as possible have restrictions on risking civilian casualties during attacks on military targets? The article was premised on the existence and meaningfulness of such limitations. Its central contention was simply that the IDF allowed lower-level commanders to make decisions about such matters during the early weeks of the war.

Charles Wald, a former American air-force general, and Geoffrey Corn explain:

An attack falling within the scope of the threshold authority may not be proportional, while one exceeding it may be. Nor does the raising of the threshold [of civilian casualties that may be risked in a given attack] mean that every IDF attack caused civilian casualties up to the authorized number. The Times cites examples of IDF strikes that did result in many casualties, but it fails to cite the numerous attack proposals that were canceled or suspended because a commander who could authorize them decided not to do so. Without such balance, the true meaning of this threshold expansion is lost.

When such thresholds are imposed, they do not, as is suggested in the Times critique, authorize inflicting that number of civilian casualties. Instead, they limit the attack decision authority at different levels of command to those expected to create a certain level of civilian risk.

The Times inadvertently highlights the nature of this conflict in one of its examples of civilian casualties: an October 2024 Israeli strike in which a secondary explosion of Hamas munitions stored near a hospital caused a fire that resulted in the gruesome death of a teenager. . . . This casualty cannot be the result of either the IDF’s rule loosening—the article acknowledges that the IDF re-tightened its rules and lowered civilian-casualty ratios in November 2023—or even the IDF itself. The only thing it is an example of is how Hamas has eroded every distinction between military and civilian targets, turning all of Gaza into a battlefield and intentionally endangering civilians in doing so.

For more than a year, the Iran-backed Houthis have been launching drones and missiles at ships traversing the Red Sea, as well as at Israeli territory, in support of Hamas. This development has drastically curtailed shipping through the Suez Canal and the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, driving up trade prices. This week, the Trump administration began an extensive bombing campaign against the Houthis in an effort to reopen that crucial waterway. Burcu Ozcelik highlights another benefit of this action:

The administration has a broader geopolitical agenda—one that includes countering China’s economic leverage, particularly Beijing’s reliance on Iranian oil. By targeting the Houthis, the United States is not only safeguarding vital shipping lanes but also exerting pressure on the Iran-China energy nexus, a key component of Beijing’s strategic posture in the region.

China was the primary destination for up to 90 percent of Iran’s oil exports in 2024, underscoring the deepening economic ties between Beijing and Tehran despite U.S. sanctions. By helping fill Iranian coffers, China aids Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in financing proxies like the Houthis. Since October of last year, notable U.S. Treasury announcements have revealed covert links between China and the Houthis.

Striking the Houthis could trigger broader repercussions—not least by disrupting the flow of Iranian oil to China. While difficult to confirm, it is conceivable and has been reported, that the Houthis may have received financial or other forms of compensation from China (such as Chinese-made military components) in exchange for allowing freedom of passage for China-affiliated vessels in the Red Sea.