I recall hearing that most modern nations have certain limits on civilian casualties for each military target which usually vary depending on the target's strat

I recall hearing that most modern nations have certain limits on civilian casualties for each military target which usually vary depending on the target's strategic and political importance. IIRC for Bin Laden it was said to be around forty, i.e. it would have been acceptable to the US command for up to forty civilians dying in an operation or strike that would have been guaranteed to also kill Bin Laden. For low value targets these might go as low as zero or just a fraction (i.e. being able to kill N combatants would justify also killing N/X civilians). Allegedly the IDF also has these limits for their operations in Gaza and elsewhere but the numbers just happen to be significantly higher, e.g. three digits for Hamas leaders. The casualty numbers reported by the Gaza health authority are generally considered credible by journalists and outside observers despite the clear ties to Hamas (which is unavoidable because Hamas is literally the government in Gaza). The conceit seems to be less about whether the numbers are accurate (they're certainly at least accurate in terms of orders of magnitude) but whether they matter. If you follow this logic, the behavior of the IDF makes a lot more sense. Literally flattening entire parts of Gaza is just par for the course. If the stated goal is to wipe out all of Hamas to the point that they can never pose a threat again (as Netanyahu has been cited in friendly news sources) this means even casualty numbers in the tens or hundreds of thousands would be acceptable if they can accomplish that goal. Of course this causes problems for supportive leaders of allied nations that have much lower values for acceptable casualties. In this context, I'm not sure if there is conclusive evidence that the IDF is deliberately killing journalists (even if there may be credible allegations around individual incidents) but it seems clear that even if they don't specifically target journalists they seem to be less preoccupied with avoiding them because the "cost" of a dead journalist is lower than it is for e.g. the US armed forces (which doesn't exactly have a stellar reputation in this regard either). If your models tolerate the deaths of, say, 100 people to kill a handful of Hamas, eventually some of those people will have been journalists (or children or foreign aid workers, etc). EDIT: I also recall a recent news story about the IDF using AI models to determine new potential targets and presumably the expected number of casualties factors into the equation. This brings back memories of Obama (or was it Bush?) being shown "baseball cards" of potential targets during the War on Terror - presumably likewise including probabilities of "collateral damage" as the US used to call it.