In the wake of over 52,000 Palestinian deaths, the killing of more than 200 journalists, and now the targeting of Iran’s state television service, Israel is no longer claiming civilians die as collateral damage—it openly argues they aren’t civilians at all. From Gaza to Tehran, Israel is expanding who it considers a legitimate target, blurring combatant lines and eroding protections under international law. Israeli military doctrine and legal theory justify assassinations of journalists and scientists through expansive definitions, and the normalisation of such tactics is leading us to the precipice of a world in which warfare is completely unchecked.
Following Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel, which killed over 1,200 people and took 252 people hostage, Israel began a military campaign in Gaza that, according to the ICJ, plausibly amounts to genocide. By May 2025, over 52,000 Palestinians, including thousands of children and aid workers, have been killed. Particularly frightening has been Israel’s targeted destruction of Gaza’s education system and the killing of over 200 journalists, marking the deadliest conflict for media workers ever recorded.
After almost 20 months of little to no consequences for its actions in Gaza, the world now watches as Israel feels emboldened to openly target Iranian civilians, such as scientists and media workers. On June 16, 2025 Israel carried out a targeted attack on Iranian state television. Similar to such attacks in Gaza, the Israeli military confirmed its responsibility for the attack, claiming without evidence that the “centre was used by [Iranian] armed forces to promote military operations under civilian cover.” This justification may appear simply to be Israel’s go-to legal argument for why it is okay for them to kill civilians; however, Israel is not only saying it can kill civilians as “collateral damage.” Rather, Israel is claiming these people are not civilians at all. Instead, in the eyes of Israel, media workers and scientists can be categorised as combatants, providing Israel an absolute right to target and kill them. Left unpunished, this type of warfare and its normalisation makes everyone a potential target.
Israel’s expanding list of who counts as a legitimate target has raised many concerns regarding international humanitarian law, press freedom, and the discourse of just war theory—which lays out the theoretical framework for what makes a war morally permissible. Of particular interest, Israeli policy and legal discourse employs a broad interpretation of who can be the target of state killing. For example, Israel recognizes a designation of “civilians who are unlawful combatants” and states: “It is possible to take a part in hostilities without using weapons at all.”
Professor of Government and Policy at Tel Aviv University Tamar Meisels took note of this legal distinction in 2014 and defended assassinations of key nuclear scientists in Iran from 2007. In those cases, Israel was suspected of carrying out the killings, but Meisels says that scientists “are unquestionably noncombatants. Partly for this reason, no one takes responsibility for their assassination.” At least, no one used to take responsibility for assassinating civilians. Now, however, Israel openly admits to targeting not only scientists but also media workers, and it justifies these actions, often posthumously, by asserting the same logic Meisels employs. For Israel, whoever their military decides to target is a combatant, regardless of traditional conceptions.
Take as example the July 2024 killing of Al Jazeera journalist Ismail Al Ghoul in Gaza. Al Ghoul and photographer Rami Al Rifi were reporting in al-Shati refugee camp near the house of Hamas political leader Ismail Haneya, who Israel assassinated in Iran the evening before. While on assignment, the pair of journalists were killed in an Israeli strike which targeted their car. According to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), Al-Ghoul’s colleague said both were found decapitated and wearing their press vests. The following day, Israel admitted to killing Al Ghoul and justified it by labeling the reporter as “a member of Hamas’s Nukhba special forces,” a claim for which they have not provided verifiable evidence. Israel’s military says he “instructed other terror operatives on how to film and distribute videos of attacks on Israeli troops,” which they describe as “an integral part of [Hamas’] military activity.”
The problem in advocating for the expansion of combatant status, such as Meisels’ argument for targeting Iranian scientists, is ultimately that it applies a double standard and leads to a slippery slope. Meisels advocates for targeting civilians only of “aggressor states,” but sometimes, it is difficult to see who the aggressor truly is—precisely why jus in bello is a neutral principle under international law. In other words, what is permissible in warfare should not change depending on who started the hostilities. Furthermore, Meisels explains how, in order to justify targeting civilians, “the threat must be grave and credible, and the prospect of impeding it by assassination must be realistic. The scientist’s contribution to the materialization of the threat must be crucial, and there must be no realistic possibility of a diplomatic solution.” The problem is Meisels’ reliance on speculation. While her theory is utilitarian, the practical truth of what counts as “grave and credible,” a “realistic” impediment, and a “crucial” contribution is broadly interpretable and necessarily determined by secret intelligence. Following this path, the judgement of executive authorities will be the only barometer for determining which civilians get to live and die. This approach runs counter to core principles of international law, like the Geneva Convention. More importantly, the human cost of legal theories like this is simply unconscionable.
Other scholars, like NYU School of Law professor Jeremy Waldron, predicted how such legal argumentation would not stop the loosening of civilian immunity at one exception. Rather, Waldron stresses that targeted killing of any noncombatants risks normalising murder by turning it into a matter of moral calculation, “by reasoning that says: ‘We are allowed to kill some people by principles we already have; surely, by the same reasoning, there must be other people we are also allowed to kill.’” This is precisely the mechanism at play in Gaza and now in Iran. Scientists, journalists, doctors, and even children are no longer protected but are instead subjected to Israeli determinations of guilt by association and targeted on the basis of unverified state declarations.
Legal developments within Israel further illustrate the institutionalisation of this drift. Last year, the Israeli Knesset passed emergency legislation permitting the immediate banning of media outlets deemed to “endanger the security of the State of Israel,” a move clearly targeting outlets like Al Jazeera and Haaretz. This suppression of press freedom is part of a broader campaign to reframe journalists as a tool of enemy propaganda and ultimately as combatants. Given the increasing willingness of Israel to target civilians as well as its dehumanizing rhetoric—such as suggestions by Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu to use nuclear weapons on Gaza, President Issac Herzog’s assertion that Gaza is “an entire nation out there that is responsible,” and Former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s reference to Gazans as “human animals,” it becomes clear that the erosion of fundamental norms that Waldron foresaw is unfolding in real time.
If the world is to stop the norms of war from slipping any further into a dark abyss, if any peace process is to be realised, and if the “rules-based international order” exists, then there are clear steps that governments should take: immediately stop all weapons shipments to Israel, sign a ceasefire with Iran, and recognise the state of Palestine. The world is long past the point of being able to claim ignorance to these issues, as Israeli crimes are thoroughly documented in a myriad of sources, ranging from legacy NGOs, like Amnesty International and the Red Cross, to the highest respected governing bodies in global affairs such as the ICJ and the UN General Assembly. If governments continue to enable Israel, then there is no coming back from a world of completely unchecked warfare.
Andrew Hastings is a storyteller, researcher, and artist from Massachusetts (USA), part of the Hertie School’s 2026 Master of International Affairs cohort. His education background includes a B.A. in Theatre and English from Dean College (Massachusetts) as well as a semester abroad in Bard College Berlin’s Arts & Society program. Currently, his focus is on Human Rights, and he has extensive experience in creative writing, photography, filmmaking, and acting. For more information, visit his website www.andrewhastings.weebly.com