The author cherry-picks statistics and appeals to allied authorities to claim a debatable civilian-to-combatant casualty ratio in Gaza, dismissing conflicting Hamas data. However, he provides a seemingly valid account of the extraordinary precautions Israel has taken, such as evacuation warnings, pauses in operations, and providing maps to civilians - measures the author reasonably argues exceed legal requirements and historical norms of urban warfare.

1. appeal to authority •     The author is appealing to the authority of John Kirby and the State Department to support the claim that Israel has not violated international humanitarian law, rather than providing direct evidence or reasoning.

As John Kirby, White House national-security communications adviser, emphasized in a press conference this week, the State Department has 'not found any incidents where the Israelis have violated international humanitarian law.'

2. cherry picking • The author picks and chooses which numbers to share with the reader, in the way that helps his narrative the most.

The Hamas-supplied estimate of more than 31,000 does not acknowledge a single combatant death... The IDF estimates it has killed about 13,000 Hamas operatives, a number I believe credible partly because I believe the armed forces of a democratic American ally over a terrorist regime...

That would mean some 18,000 civilians have died in Gaza, a ratio of roughly 1 combatant to 1.5 civilians... historically low for modern urban warfare.

The United Nations, European Union and other sources estimate civilians usually account for 80% to 90% of casualties, or a 1:9 ratio, in modern war...

The author does not mention that a recent spokesman for Hamas put their number of combatant casualties at only around 60% of what Israel claimed at the time. This would change the combatant-to-civilian casualty ratio to 1:3, considerably closer to the 1:9 ratio the author claims is "typical".

Additionally, as for that 1:9 ratio, the author derives it from first saying that "80% to 90%" of casualties in war are typically civilian, and then summing that up as "1:9". But the 80% part of that would be 1:4 -- close to the same ratio derived taking Hamas' estimates instead of the IDF's. ​The failure to even mention, let alone address, these additional numbers makes this a clear case of cherry-picking information. ​The author could have mentioned all of the numbers and still made a case that Israel's civilian casualty ratio was lower than some people might be assuming -- but not to the exaggerated degree created by the cherry-picking.