- Nearly half of the bombs Israel has dropped in Gaza have been unguided bombs, new US intel says, per CNN.
- It’s a shocking number, but Israel hasn’t been hiding its use of “dumb” bombs or other controversial weapons.
- Photos and videos have documented Israel’s extensive and destructive bombing campaign.
Over two months after Israel began its fight against Hamas, more details about the weapons it has been using in Gaza are coming to light.
New intelligence says nearly half the explosives Israel dropped in Gaza were unguided “dumb” bombs, a staggering statistic. But while the number, equating to thousands of devastating strikes, is shocking, Israel hasn’t exactly hidden its use of the controversial weapons.
Three sources familiar with the new assessment by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Israel’s airstrikes told CNN this week that about 40-45% of the 29,000 air-to-ground munitions used in Gaza were unguided. The remainder were precision-guided weapons.
That means that Israel used upwards of over 13,000 so-called “dumb” bombs in its devastating strikes in Gaza. Such weapons, which don’t have internal guidance systems or kits to improve their aim and generally follow the trajectory at which they were dropped, have the potential to cause significant devastation beyond the intended target area.
In the Gaza Strip, which has been subjected to continuous Israeli airstrikes in the wake of the 10/7 Hamas terror attacks on October 7, thousands of civilians have been killed.
Israel received some criticism for its suspected use of unguided munitions during the first week of its air campaign in Gaza. In early October, the Israeli military shared photos and videos of fighter jets taking off for bombing campaigns with what experts quickly identified as unguided “dumb” bombs.
Some open-source information accounts also documented the use, with one saying it that it suggested “the Israeli Air Force may be dipping into stocks of older, less accurate unguided munitions.” But the IDF also shared photos and videos of its bombs equipped with Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs) and other precision-guided weapons.
Even some of the precision weapons, due to the size of the bomb, some of which are 2,000 pounds, can do serious damage beyond the intended target.
Throughout both its air and ground campaigns in Gaza — which have wreaked havoc on the strip, displaced almost two million people according to the United Nations, and killed almost 20,000 people while injuring over 50,000, according to Gaza’s Hamas-affiliated health ministry — Israel has often downplayed international concerns over the results of its attacks.
Just Wednesday, an Israeli military spokesperson said the IDF remained “committed to international law and a moral code of conduct” and was “devoting vast resources to minimize harm to the civilians that Hamas has forced into the role of human shields.”
“Our war is against Hamas, not against the people of Gaza,” Maj. Karen Hajioff said.
Officials and experts have called Israeli statements that it is committed to protecting civilians into question, noting the extensive destruction caused by the ongoing airstrikes and ground assaults in Gaza, blurring the line between what Israel may consider to be acceptable collateral damage and what is necessary for the fight against Hamas.
Even President Joe Biden has expressed concern, warning on Tuesday that Israel “has most of the world supporting it” right now, but “they’re starting to lose that support by the indiscriminate bombing that takes place.” Biden’s comments were a stark shift from the earlier unconditional and unwavering support for Israel.
When asked about the use of unguided munitions in Gaza and the intel published in CNN, the IDF told Business Insider it “strikes military targets of the Hamas terrorist organization, based on high quality intelligence and the operational necessity, while using high-quality munitions that are operated by skilled pilots and advanced systems, which continuously assess and verify that the strikes are directed at military targets.”“The type of munitions used in each strike is determined according to the characteristics of the target, the operational need, and the effort to mitigate harm to civilians, which the terrorist organization uses as human shields,” it added.
Striking targets within Gaza with unguided munitions, as the IDF has apparently done extensively, has led to massive damage in areas outside of target zones. Those “dumb” bombs can often be impacted by weather, wind, angle, other environmental factors, and the ability of the pilot and aircraft.
Justin Bronk, a senior research fellow for airpower and military technology at the Royal United Services Institute think tank, previously told Business Insider that these bombs would normally be used in a more open area where targets are dispersed and the use wasn’t indiscriminate, “but if you’re using them against targets in a built-up area, then it is almost by definition indiscriminate, particularly when using this older style of unguided bomb with a much higher drag design.”
The type of bomb seen in some Israeli Air Force photos was the 750-lb M117, a weapon that first entered service in the 1950s.
Israel has also been using massive, 2,000-pound Smart, Precise Impact, Cost Effective (SPICE) bombs, which are weapons equipped with Israeli-developed guidance kits that, similar to JDAMs, convert air-to-ground unguided bombs into precision-guided munitions. Bombs with either SPICEs or JDAMs are generally considered to be highly accurate, but the extreme wide area affected by the blast raises concerns, weapons investigators told BI’s Jake Epstein.
The use of such devastating weapons, along with the IDF’s revelations that it uses an artificial intelligence system to determine where in Gaza it should bomb, have been seen by some observers as cause for concern. That system is part of an operation known as the “target factory,” which has increased the number of strike locations by over 70,000 percent since it first became functional several years ago.
Back in late November, a media investigation by the left-wing Israeli outlet +972 Magazine into the role of the AI system, called “Gospel,” in the airstrikes found that it produces recommendations for targeting homes or areas where suspected Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants might reside, which can then be hit with airstrikes.
Sources told the media outlet that the Israeli military knows in advance how many civilians might be killed in attacks on residences, and strikes are determined based on assessments of the potential collateral damage.
One former Israeli intelligence officer told the outlets that the Israeli Gospel system creates a “mass assassination factory” with a clear emphasis on “quantity and not on quality.”
Despite growing international pressure for a ceasefire and controversial accusations that Israel committing genocide against civilians in Gaza, Israeli officials have continued to signal that the war has no end in sight. Earlier this month, Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said “we do not have the legitimacy to stop,” per a translated statement.
“There is only one legitimate thing to do: to win against Hamas, to strike them and eliminate them — destroying their governing and military capabilities, and bringing the hostages home,” he said.
That’s been the main goal of Israel after Hamas’ horrifying, multi-front terrorist attacks killed over 1,200 Israelis and injured thousands more, mostly civilians, in early October.