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Comment by anigbrowl | Hacker News Reader

If all you have are unguided rockets, you're going to point them wherever they're most likely to hit something. If/when you have guidance systems, you can afford to be selective and concentrate on high value targets. That's how it goes in asymmetric warfare.

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Given Hamas' explicit genocidal goals, I think we can expect some portion of their strikes will simply aim to maximize Jewish deaths, even as others may target specific military assets.

See for example Russia's recent Hroza strike (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hroza_missile_attack), which killed 59 at a memorial service. Hamas can't really do strikes like that today; they would just miss with overwhelming probability. I think that will change soon if they remain in power.

The Iskander missile has a 1500lb warhead. Compare the number of deaths it causes to the number of deaths a single unguided Israeli bomb causes in Gaza when it hits a populated building, and you will soon realize that the guidance is not the determining factor here, it's just the mass of explosives.

24000 bombs dropped and hamas says 20000 dead. That's less than 1 bomb per death.

Because people left. Of course, if you bomb an empty building few will die. We're not looking at averages here, we're looking at single incidents that caused many deaths.

>high value targets

Such as places with a lot of civilians yes

No. In asymmetric warfare civilians are targeted partly for animus but mostly because of accessibility. Poorer security places extra pressure on the enemy government which makes it easier to destabilize over time, in theory. In the case of unguided missiles it's natural to point them at wherever the infrastructure is dense.

If you have the resources to be selective, it's much more attractive to hit specific targets like military facilities or political figures/institutions. Terrorist attacks are more often perpetrated against civilians nowadays because political/military targets are so hardened that assassinations are difficult.

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