By — Nick Schifrin Nick Schifrin By — Dan Sagalyn Dan Sagalyn Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/retired-military-leaders-share-views-on-israels-deadly-strike-on-aid-convoy-in-gaza Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript Audio Watch Next José Andrés accuses Israel of deliberately targeting World Central Kitchen members Following Israel's deadly strike on aid workers in Gaza and the international outrage it caused, Nick Schifrin has views from Wes Bryant, a retired U.S. Air Force joint terminal attack controller who called in air strikes and led strike planning cells, and retired Israeli Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus who commanded IDF forces in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. Nick Schifrin: Wes Bryant, what's your response to those two words, one, misidentification that we heard from the chief of the general staff, and as Jonathan Conricus said, some kind of misunderstanding or misunderstood a complex battlefield?Master Sgt. Wes Bryant (RET.), U.S. Air Force: Yes, and I appreciate those remarks.Misidentification does, of course, happen in combat, but, to me, this strike is just an effect or a demonstration of a broader problem. And that's a pattern of targeting negligence, a pattern of indifference towards civilian harm, and a pattern of disregard toward international humanitarian law that the IDF has, unfortunately, though being our allies and though having a clear precedent to go after Hamas, which is a dangerous and brutal terrorist organization, that the IDF has, unfortunately, demonstrated throughout their operation in Gaza. Nick Schifrin: Jonathan Conricus, can you respond to that, targeting negligence and a disregard for civilian casualties? Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus: Yes, I think those are very unfortunate and uncorrect comments or an assessment of IDF practices.I, myself, have been in the targeting rooms or the cells where we do those processes. I have seen the process, I have seen the legal overview, and I have seen the intelligence vetting that is done, which is part of protocol, before we strike. We operate in an extremely complex environment, unlike expeditionary missions, which I think is the benchmark that you will bring up and give me examples of.But that benchmark is not really relevant because we are talking about defending our homeland here. We do not have the same leisure and time to be super extra careful when it comes to taking out live military targets, because our civilians are at risk here.Israel is committed to the international law of armed warfare. Israel takes precaution. Israel uses distinction and proportionality, but that does not mean, sadly, that Palestinian civilians do not get wounded or killed on the battlefield.But the responsibility for that is, first and foremost, with those who set up the battlefield. And that is Hamas, not Israel. Nick Schifrin: Wes Bryant, take on those two points.One, there is a difference, as Jonathan Conricus put it, between fighting, as you did in Afghanistan and Iraq and Syria, and fighting in Israel itself or next to it in Gaza, but also the international humanitarian law, specifically distinction and proportionality.Do you believe the IDF is following those two tenets? Master Sgt. Wes Bryant: Well, on the second point, I absolutely don't, for the most part.I think an over 30,000 casualty ratio. Whether or not 9,000 or 10,000 of those are Hamas operatives, that's a huge ratio between civilian casualties and combatants.With comparing past wars with this, yes, every war has its differences, but urban combat is urban combat and war is war. More importantly, international humanitarian law is just that.And what I see the IDF doing is taking the principles of military necessity and proportionality and saying that basically any civilian loss that happens is justified because of the military necessity of this target.It's just not the way the U.S. conducts warfare. Even with the civilian harm that the U.S. has caused, which it has caused civilian harm, and we know that, the U.S. itself would absolutely not be conducting a targeting campaign in the way that IDF has in the last few months.And that's something that I think I think the whole world is paying attention to you, and I think both Israeli and U.S. government need to pay closer attention to you. Nick Schifrin: Jonathan Conricus, you're shaking your head. Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus: Yes, I can personally tell of hundreds of strikes that have been aborted in real time in this war in Gaza because of the presence of children, civilians, women, elderly, and people who we assessed were not enemy combatants, and strikes, airstrikes, were called off because the proportionality between the military necessity and the importance of taking out a certain target did not warrant or justify the killing or the probable wounding of civilians.The Gaza battlefield is an area which is virtually impossible to fight in without having noncombatant casualties. That is how Hamas has rigged the battlefield. That is what we are fighting. And that is the sad reality that we, by trying to move civilians out of the battlefield, have tried to negate.That's what the Israeli Defense Forces did in the beginning. We called on civilians to evacuate because we know that fighting high-intensity warfare in urban terrain is a horrible endeavor that leads to casualties. Nick Schifrin: Wes Bryant, Hamas has rigged the battlefield. How much does that matter, in your opinion, as you assess the IDF campaign? Master Sgt. Wes Bryant: Well, Hamas' known use of human shields does not negate the other combatant, IDF in this case, the responsibility to protect civilian and noncombatant lives.So the IDF has put out statements, up to Netanyahu, Netanyahu himself, that these strikes have unwitting or involuntary human shields that Hamas is using, and, therefore, it's justified that we went after this target and we can't avoid, in some of these cases, killing these civilians.Well, unfortunately, through that, IDF has also acknowledged that they are still striking when civilians or involuntary human shields are actually known in the target area. And that's obvious even just from the reporting and the other corroboration that we see.And so that's a problem under U.S. law of war. That would be a violation of our law of war and international humanitarian law. And other — under all common interpretations, it would be as well. I don't doubt that the IDF is calling off strikes, is aborting in some cases. They're just not doing it enough. Nick Schifrin: I know there's a lot more to discuss. Unfortunately, we're out of time.I want to thank you both. Wes Bryant, Jonathan Conricus, thanks very much for both of your time. Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus: Thank you. Master Sgt. Wes Bryant: Thank you. Listen to this Segment Watch Watch the Full Episode PBS NewsHour from Apr 03, 2024 By — Nick Schifrin Nick Schifrin Nick Schifrin is PBS NewsHour’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Correspondent. He leads NewsHour’s daily foreign coverage, including multiple trips to Ukraine since the full-scale invasion, and has created weeklong series for the NewsHour from nearly a dozen countries. The PBS NewsHour series “Inside Putin’s Russia” won a 2017 Peabody Award and the National Press Club’s Edwin M. Hood Award for Diplomatic Correspondence. In 2020 Schifrin received the American Academy of Diplomacy’s Arthur Ross Media Award for Distinguished Reporting and Analysis of Foreign Affairs. He was a member of the NewsHour teams awarded a 2021 Peabody for coverage of COVID-19, and a 2023 duPont Columbia Award for coverage of Afghanistan and Ukraine. Prior to PBS NewsHour, Schifrin was Al Jazeera America's Middle East correspondent. He led the channel’s coverage of the 2014 war in Gaza; reported on the Syrian war from Syria's Turkish, Lebanese and Jordanian borders; and covered the annexation of Crimea. He won an Overseas Press Club award for his Gaza coverage and a National Headliners Award for his Ukraine coverage. From 2008-2012, Schifrin served as the ABC News correspondent in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In 2011 he was one of the first journalists to arrive in Abbottabad, Pakistan, after Osama bin Laden’s death and delivered one of the year’s biggest exclusives: the first video from inside bin Laden’s compound. His reporting helped ABC News win an Edward R. Murrow award for its bin Laden coverage. Schifrin is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a board member of the Overseas Press Club Foundation. He has a Bachelor’s degree from Columbia University and a Master of International Public Policy degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). @nickschifrin By — Dan Sagalyn Dan Sagalyn As the deputy senior producer for foreign affairs and defense at the PBS NewsHour, Dan plays a key role in helping oversee and produce the program’s foreign affairs and defense stories. His pieces have broken new ground on an array of military issues, exposing debates simmering outside the public eye. @DanSagalyn