Hamas will continue to use "human shields” in Gaza, according to U.S. and Israeli officials, but those Palestinian civilians will not protect the terrorists from the Israel Defense Forces.

“We make phone calls to alert them that a strike will be carried out if we know that there are civilians in the area, and we do many other measures,” IDF Lt. Col. Amnon Shefler said this week. “Sadly, there are times that we cannot and yet — that is because it's a time-critical target, or for other reasons that we need to carry out a strike without using those very high amount of efforts that are put into making sure that as [few] as possible civilians are hurt, injured, and of course, hopefully not killed.”

HAMAS TELLS CIVILIANS TO IGNORE ISRAEL'S EVACUATION WARNING

Israeli military officials have warned the civilian population of northern Gaza to flee south of the Gaza River, a week after an unprecedented Hamas terrorist attack that has been described by U.S. officials as worse than “ISIS-level savagery”. That evacuation order, which the IDF distributed by leaflet, audio, and social media, drew the endorsement of U.S. officials who credited the Israelis with giving “fair warning” to the civilians at risk of being caught in the crossfire.

“They're trying to move civilians out of harm's way and giving them fair warning,” White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told CNN on Friday. “What they’re trying to do is to the maximum extent possible avoid civilian casualties and also separate Hamas from the civilians. Hamas actually gave a counterorder, telling Palestinians in Gaza to stay at home. Why? Because having human shields, they think, protects them.”

The expected ground operation drew warning from a voice of experience: Russian President Vladimir Putin, who offered his “semi-professional” commentary more than a year after Russian troops razed Mariupol in the first few months of his full-scale war in Ukraine.

“You and I understand ... to say it semi-professionally, using heavy weaponry in residential areas is a difficult task,” Putin told a Commonwealth of Independent States summit on Friday, per the War Translated project. “But to carry out these operations in residential areas without heavy equipment is even more difficult. And the most important thing is, losses among civilians will be completely unacceptable.”

The war in Israel already has had appalling consequences in Gaza and Israel. Hamas terrorists caught Israeli security forces off guard on Saturday when they broke through the Gaza border fence and rampaged for hours through southern Israel. The terrorists massacred at least 1,300 people and injured more than 3,000 other people while taking an estimated 150 people hostage into Gaza. The resultant Israeli bombardments have killed approximately 1,800 Palestinians, according to Gaza officials, and international human rights organizations have condemned Israel’s evacuation order as unworkable.

“This represents an attack on medical care and on humanity,” Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres General Director Meinie Nicolai said Friday. “'Unprecedented' doesn’t even cover the medical humanitarian impact of this. Gaza is being flattened, thousands of people are dying. This must stop now. We condemn Israel’s demand in the strongest possible terms.”

Yet terrorist organizations can find macabre value in “human shields” even when they do furnish protection against military responses. U.S. counterterrorism officials for decades have recognized that “many terrorist groups want to provoke over-reaction,” as a study on the psychology of terrorism written for the Justice Department in 2004 observed, “as uncompromising militants seek to undermine moderation and political compromise” while gaining new terrorist recruits.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken emphasized that “what Israel is doing is not retaliation” as he continued his diplomatic tour of the Middle East.

“No country can tolerate having a terrorist group slaughter its people in the most unconscionable ways and live like that,” Blinken told reporters in Qatar on Friday. “What Israel is doing is not retaliation. What Israel is doing is defending the lives of its people and trying to make sure that this does not happen again.”

United Nations human rights monitors have said they are "collecting and preserving evidence of war crimes” in the conflict, with particular reference to Hamas “using civilians as human shields” and any signs of “collective punishment” by Israeli forces. Israeli President Isaac Herzog expressed impatience with the idea that Palestinian civilians were not responsible for the attack because “they could have fought against that evil regime which took over Gaza” after Israeli forces withdrew in 2005.

“It is an entire nation out there that is responsible. It's not true this rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved. It's absolutely not true,” Herzog said to reporters on Wednesday, one day before hosting Blinken. "I agree there are many innocent Palestinians who don't agree with this, but if you have a missile in your godd*** kitchen and you want to shoot it at me, am I allowed to defend myself? We have to defend ourselves. We have the full right to do so."

Israeli officials, voicing a determination to eradicate Hamas, have acknowledged that they are “not being surgical” in their hunt for Hamas targets who might have gone unharmed in previous conflicts due to the potential for civilian casualties.

“If anybody tries to get in [their] way, the standing order will be to open fire,” Foundation for Defense of Democracies Senior Vice President Jonathan Schanzer told the Washington Examiner. “I don't think that anyone in Israel is talking about wanton killing and destruction. Israel still differentiates itself from the kinds of, you know, barbaric attacks that occurred on Saturday. They're not interested in replicating that or doing it in kind, but they have vowed to fight a war of annihilation, as it relates to Hamas."

“A lot of people are going to die in the next week,” Center for Strategic and International Studies Senior Vice President Jonathan Alterman said Friday. “I’m afraid that next week [social media is] going to be full of clips of mutilated bodies and unspeakable horrors. ... People are going to feel completely informed when they’re only getting a sliver of truth, and the resultant polarization is going to be supercharged too.”

An IDF official made a similar forecast late Thursday while urging American Israel Public Affairs Committee affiliates to support Israel even when “the scenes out of Gaza will be hard to stomach” in the coming days.

“Even when the going gets ugly and the scenes out of Gaza will be hard to stomach — not as hard as the things that were coming out of Kibbutz Be’eri and Kfar Aza, but they will be hard to stomach — then we will need the support of anybody who loves freedom wants to stand up for what’s right,” IDF international spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus said, per the Times of Israel.

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His colleague pledged that Israeli forces would comply with international law and faulted Iran and the terrorists for contriving the “moral challenge” of fighting a war among human shields.

“We are carrying out strikes in Gaza in order to stop Hamas terrorists and Islamic Jihad terrorists from continuing attacking Israeli civilians,” Shefler said. “Sadly, their tactics — tactics that they have developed over the years with a lot of support and guidance also from Iran, other than also having the continuous support of funding from Iran — is to use civilians as a direct tactic.”