What is the Dahiya Doctrine?

• The Dahiya Doctrine is an Israeli military doctrine that calls for the use of massive, disproportionate force and the deliberate targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure.

What are the origins of the Dahiya Doctrine?

• The doctrine is named after the Dahiya suburb of Beirut, where the Lebanese paramilitary group Hezbollah has its headquarters, which the Israeli military leveled during its assault on Lebanon in the summer of 2006 that killed nearly 1,000 civilians, about a third of them children, and caused enormous damage to the country’s civilian infrastructure, including power plants, sewage treatment plants, bridges, and port facilities.
• It was formulated by then-General Gadi Eisenkot when he was Chief of Northern Command. As he explained in 2008 referring to a future war on Lebanon: "What happened in the Dahiya quarter of Beirut in 2006 will happen in every village from which Israel is fired on… We will apply disproportionate force on it (village) and cause great damage and destruction there. From our standpoint, these are not civilian villages, they are military bases… This is not a recommendation. This is a plan. And it has been approved.” Eisenkot went on to become chief of the general  staff of the Israeli military before retiring in 2019.
• While it became official Israeli military doctrine after Israel’s 2006 attack on Lebanon, Israel’s military has used disproportionate force and targeted Palestinian, Lebanese, and other civilians since Israel was established in 1948 based on the ethnic cleansing of indigenous Palestinians, including dozens of massacres to force them to flee for their lives. 

Is the Dahiya Doctrine legal?

• International law expressly prohibits the use of disproportionate force and the targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure, which are war crimes. As noted by the International Committee of the Red Cross:

“Applying the principle of proportionality is critically important for protecting civilians and critical infrastructure in situations of armed conflict… an attack against a military objective can be lawful only if the principles of proportionality and precautions are respected, meaning that the incidental civilian harm must not be excessive, and the attacker must have taken all feasible precautions to avoid this harm or at least reduce it.”

• Article 51 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits attacks ‘which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.”

Where has Israel used the Dahiya Doctrine & what impact has it had?

• In addition to Lebanon, Israel’s military has applied the Dahiya Doctrine during repeated assaults on Palestinians in Gaza, which has been under continuous Israeli military occupation since 1967 and an illegal Israeli siege and naval blockade since 2007. Most notably:
  • In December 2008, Israel launched Operation Cast Lead, a devastating three-week onslaught that killed about 1,400 Palestinians, most of them civilians, including 300 children. A UN inquiry concluded it was “a deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorise a civilian population” Amnesty International concluded: “Israeli forces repeatedly breached the laws of war, including by carrying out direct attacks on civilians and civilian buildings and attacks targeting Palestinian militants that caused a disproportionate toll among civilians.” Shortly after the end of Cast Lead, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told a cabinet meeting: “The government's position was from the outset that if there is shooting at the residents of the south, there will be a harsh Israeli response [against Gaza] that will be disproportionate.”
  • ​In July 2014, Israel launched an even deadlier and more destructive assault on Gaza, Operation Protective Edge, killing more than 1,500 Palestinian civilians in 50 days, including more than 500 children, and targeting civilian infrastructure, including Gaza’s only power plant, causing shortages of electricity, clean water, and causing raw sewage to flow into the streets. The Israeli military destroyed entire neighborhoods and flattened high-rise residential buildings and shopping centers. UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon warned that the high number of civilians killed raised "serious questions about proportionality.” The UN high commissioner for human rights expressed deep concern over possible Israeli “war crimes,” telling the UN Human Rights Council: “Attacks against military objectives must offer a definite military advantage in the prevailing circumstances, and precautions must be taken to protect civilian lives… A number of incidents, along with the high number of civilian deaths, belie the claim that all necessary precautions are being taken.” A week into the attack, Human Rights Watch issued a report, “Unlawful Israeli Airstrikes Kill Civilians: Bombings of Civilian Structures Suggest Illegal Policy,” which found: “Human Rights Watch investigated four Israeli strikes during the July military offensive in Gaza that resulted in civilian casualties and either did not attack a legitimate military target or attacked despite the likelihood of civilian casualties being disproportionate to the military gain.”
  • In October 2023, following Hamas’ attack that killed nearly 1,200 people, including about 800 civilians, Israel launched one of the deadliest bombing campaigns in history and a ground invasion of Gaza. As of July 31, 2024, the Israeli military killed more than 39,000 Palestinians in Gaza, mostly civilians, including some 15,000 children; systematically attacked civilians and civilian infrastructure; weaponized starvation against the entire population; ethnically cleansed nearly 2 million people from their homes; almost completely destroyed Gaza’s healthcare system; and reduced much of Gaza to rubble, making it virtually uninhabitable. Human rights groups harshly condemned Israel’s actions, with Amnesty International noting: “Deliberately targeting civilians, carrying out disproportionate attacks, and indiscriminate attacks which kill or injure civilians are war crimes. Israel has a horrific track record of committing war crimes with impunity in previous wars on Gaza.” In a submission to the Biden administration, Human Rights Watch and Oxfam noted that they “have observed or documented that the Israeli authorities have carried out indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks in violation of international humanitarian law…, imposed collective punishments on the civilian population, deprived the civilian population of objects indispensable to its survival, and used starvation of civilians as a weapon of war.  These are all grave violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention and customary international humanitarian law.” In January 2024, the International Court of Justice and a US federal court issued separate rulings concluding that Israel may be guilty of genocide in Gaza. In May 2024, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court requested warrants for the arrests of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Galant for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including “starvation of civilians as a method of warfare,” “intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population,” and “extermination and/or murder.”
     

Go deeper

• Fact Sheet: 288 Days of Israel’s Genocide in Gaza: By the Numbers