Ancient to early modern warfare: armies regularly sacked cities, destroyed food supplies, and terrorized civilian populations to force surrender.globalpolicyjournal
World War I: industrialized war widened civilian exposure, and the home front became part of the battlefield.ourworldindata
World War II: Nazi Germany and the Allies both used city bombing and large-scale destruction of civilian areas as a method of war, and civilian deaths dwarfed earlier conflicts.dcas.dmdc.osd+1
1941–1945, Nazi occupation in Europe: Nazi war aims included mass murder, starvation, deportation, and destruction of civilian life on a scale far beyond ordinary bombing.reddit+1
Korean War, 1950–1953: U.S.-led bombing devastated North Korea’s cities and infrastructure, showing how total war logic returned in the Cold War.apjjf+1
Vietnam War, 1960s–1970s: the U.S. used airpower and pressure on civilian-support systems to coerce the enemy, including tactics that blurred military and civilian targets.history.navy+1
Late 20th century urban wars: modern warfare increasingly concentrated civilians in the combat zone, making harm to civilians a recurring feature rather than an exception.icrc+1
Gaza, 2023–present: the destruction of housing, water, power, health systems, and other civilian infrastructure reflects the same broader pattern of urban warfare and coercive pressure on populations.ohchr+
Gaza is not an exception to wartime brutality; it is part of a long history in which states, including the United States and Nazi Germany, have treated civilian populations and infrastructure as instruments of war.
Nazi Germany: explicit racial extermination and occupation policy, plus deliberate mass killing.dcas.dmdc.osd+1
United States in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam: strategic bombing, city destruction, and coercive pressure on civilian populations.civiliansinconflict+2
Gaza: intense urban warfare with widespread civilian harm and infrastructure destruction, fitting the same general pattern of modern war’s treatment of civilians.