One of the most powerful criticisms against Israel for bombing Gaza is that it is acting almost identically to how the British treated the Germans during their Dresden atrocity. The latter is one of the most egregious episodes of World War II. It easily fits the charge of war crimes, and perhaps even partial genocide.
There are indeed parallels: In both cases, massive numbers of civilians met their death from the air. In each case, prior to these two events, the other side did indeed perpetrate uncivilized behavior. The Germans bombed Coventry, a city of non-combatants, on November 14-15, 1940 – what became known as the Coventry Blitz. Similarly, Hamas unleashed its Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7, 2023. By some dark cosmic irony, roughly the same number of innocents perished in each case, around 1,200 souls; although the Germans took no English hostages, unlike Hamas who dragged screaming civilians across the border, where many later died in captivity. Another overlap: Each massacre was given a specific, almost poetic, name.
