The Lie

• Israel has murdered tens of thousands of Gazan women and children on purpose.

The Truth

• Israel has taken extensive measures to avoid harming civilians. Civilian casualties—tragic and real—occur largely because Hamas embeds itself within civilian areas and uses civilians as shields.

Background

• On December 10, 2025, Tucker Carlson claimed “it’s just a fact” that Israel murdered “tens of thousands of women and children” in Gaza “on purpose,” calling any explanation of accidental casualties a “lie.” (X)

Truth Explained:

• Tucker’s claim mirrors propaganda by Hamas and sympathetic media outlets, which have long accused Israel of intentionally targeting civilians but have never provided credible evidence.
• Israel has consistently and unequivocally rejected all claims that it deliberately targets women and children. (IDF), (The Guardian), (Times of Israel)
• Israel’s efforts to avoid civilian casualties, given Hamas’s deliberate use of civilians as human shields, have been well-documented. (NATO), (Hoover Institution)
• Israel’s actions in the Gaza war are justified under international law. (BESA Center), (Hoover Institution), (City Journal)
• Israel’s targeting methods contradict claims of intentional civilian killing. The IDF uses snipers, armed drones, and precision munitions to strike specific terrorist targets. These would be unnecessary if Israel intended mass civilian killings. (The Guardian)
• Hamas’s own numbers undermine the “intentional killing” narrative. Hamas’s inflated casualty figures (67,000 in two years of war) do not resemble what intentional mass-civilian targeting would look like. If Israel truly targeted civilians deliberately, Hamas’s numbers would be significantly higher.
• Israel routinely sacrifices tactical advantage—and soldiers’ lives—to protect civilians. Roughly 1,000 IDF soldiers have died in a ground offensive that would be unnecessary if Israel were not trying to avoid targeting civilians. (ABC News)
• Former IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz has previously said he was proud that the IDF’s Golani Brigade soldiers were sacrificed to spare Palestinian civilians. (Times of Israel)
• Gantz has described personally overseeing civilian evacuations before strikes, even when doing so increased risk to IDF troops. (Times of Israel)
• The IDF employs multiple methods to warn civilians before operations: phone calls and text messages, leaflet drops and radio broadcasts, and “roof knocking” (non-lethal warning munitions). (IDF)
• Hamas’s own data contradicts claims of indiscriminate or deliberate civilian targeting. In Khan Yunis, between January and May 2024, women and children made up just 34% of reported deaths—far below their 75% share of the population and far below Hamas’s public accusations. (Henry Jackson Society)
• In March 2025, Hamas listed 50,021 identified deaths. Women and children made up 51%, while fighting-age males accounted for about 45%, with many minors being underage combatants. These proportions point to targeted strikes on combatants—not deliberate attacks on civilians. (Henry Jackson Society)
• Even accepting Hamas’s inflated figures, Israel’s civilian-to-combatant ratio is extraordinarily low. With 62,000 total deaths claimed and 22,000 terrorists killed, the ratio is about 2:1—versus a 9:1 global average in urban war, per the UN. No military deliberately targeting civilians would produce numbers this low. (UN), (Times of Israel)
• Hamas’s casualty reporting is notoriously unreliable. Its Ministry of Health labels all deaths as “civilians,” including combatants, routinely misclassifies adult males as women or children, and excludes natural deaths or those killed by Hamas. It has also reshuffled, deleted, and recategorized data throughout the war. Despite these flaws, many prominent Western media figures, such as Tucker Carlson, report Hamas’s numbers as fact—granting Hamas a major propaganda win. (Henry Jackson Society)

Quotes:

• “To be clear, IDF directives prohibit deliberate attacks on civilians. “ — IDF
• “Israel’s efforts to avoid civilian casualties have been multifaceted: the IDF imposed restrictions on the use of force in the vicinity of civilians, focused on precision airpower to reduce the risk of collateral damage, and warned residents to evacuate prior to an impending air strike. Hamas exploited Israel’s casualty sensitivity by using human shields, including by encouraging residents to defy IDF warning messages and widely publicising incidents of civilian casualties in order to gain international support.” — NATO
• “A tragic truth of war is that civilians die. I don’t like it and you don’t like it. And they brought it upon themselves. The only operation and entity to blame is the leadership of Hamas, not the Israeli government for fighting this defensive war after they were invaded.” — Charlie Kirk

Takeaway:

• Claims that Israel is deliberately killing civilians rely on Hamas-manipulated casualty data and ignore the overwhelming evidence that the IDF conducts one of the most restrained urban warfare campaigns in modern history—often at great cost to its own soldiers.