Cyber warfare has become a powerful tool in recent conflicts, targeting both military and civilian infrastructure. During the 2023 Israel-Hamas conflict, cyberattacks were launched against Israel’s critical systems which included their power grids, emergency alert systems, and communication networks. These cyber operations show how attacks on essential services can not only delay emergency responses but also create widespread fear and chaos among civilians. Hacktivist groups like Cyber Av3ngers and Anonymous Sudan blurred the lines between military and civilian targets and demonstrated the devastating impact of hybrid warfare. By disrupting daily life and threatening public safety, these actions show how civilians are often forced into the crossfire of the attacks. In this Case Analysis, I will argue that utilitarianism shows us that these actions could not be part of a just war because the harm inflicted on civilians significantly outweighs any potential military gain and utilitarianism emphasizes achieving the greatest good for the greatest number, which these actions clearly fail to meet.

Boylan introduces the key concept of balancing “attack and response” in his Just War Theory. He argues that any military action should meet ethical standards by being legitimate and proportional which means that it should focus on military objectives without causing unnecessary harm to civilians. This principle requires that soldiers carefully separate military targets from civilian ones, especially in modern forms of warfare, like cyberattacks, which can impact large civilian populations. For an action to be considered part of a just war, it should be crucial for military success and carefully controlled to limit harm to civilians. During the Israel-Hamas conflict, cyberattacks targeted critical infrastructure in Israel, such as their power grids and emergency alert systems. According to Boylan’s principle of a just attack and response, these attacks crossed an ethical line. Instead of focusing solely on military targets, they disrupted essential services that civilians rely on daily. For example, Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks on public alert systems and power grids didn’t just interrupt the military but also made it harder for civilians to respond in emergencies, putting lives at risk. Boylan emphasizes that attacks in warfare should be limited to avoid hurting civilians. However, the cyber tactics used in this case affected a broad civilian population, creating fear and chaos without considering the consequences for civilians. By hitting infrastructure that serves the public, these attacks prioritized widespread disruption over ethics. In Boylan’s terms, these actions don’t meet the ethical requirements for a “just” response.

            Utilitarianism focuses on maximizing well-being and minimizing harm and is a useful tool for examining the ethical implications of these cyberattacks. The utilitarian principle of minimizing harm stresses the importance of actively reducing suffering, especially for vulnerable populations. Using this idea of minimizing harm to analyze the cyberattacks in the Israel-Hamas conflict brings up some serious ethical issues. Even if these attacks were intended to disrupt Israel’s military operations, their broad impact on essential services made it impossible to separate military from civilian harm. According to the principle of minimizing harm, these actions are ethically wrong because they lead to massive suffering for civilians. A utilitarian approach would argue that these tactics ignore the duty to reduce harm, especially when more targeted methods such as attacks directly focused on military assets, could have been used to achieve similar objectives without affecting civilians. In this way, the principle of minimizing harm supports the idea that these cyberattacks don’t meet the ethical standards of utilitarianism, as they caused significant harm to civilians.

Taddeo’s key concept in his Just War theory is “war as a last resort”. This means that all peaceful options, like diplomacy or negotiations, must be fully explored and exhausted before turning to conflict. When applied to cyber warfare, this principle stresses that cyberattacks should only be used when absolutely necessary, and only when no other solutions are available. By focusing on “war as a last resort,” Taddeo stresses about the importance of restraint and ethical boundaries, even in the complex digital world. Looking at the Israel-Hamas cyberattacks through this lens shows where these ethical guidelines were ignored. The DDoS attacks targeted Israel’s power grids, emergency alert systems, and financial sector, causing chaos for civilians in an already tense situation. These cyberattacks didn’t meet the criteria of “war as a last resort” because they didn’t explore non-violent alternatives first. Instead, they created massive disruptions for ordinary people, from preventing access to essential resources to causing fear and confusion. These actions crossed ethical lines by resorting to cyber warfare prematurely, without first trying less harmful solutions.

The principle of utility in outcomes is a central idea in utilitarianism. This approach focuses on the long-term effects of decisions, not just their immediate impacts. In the case of the Israel-Hamas cyberattacks, the long-term harm to civilians far outweighed any military gains. For example, while disrupting Israel’s power grid might have had a small military impact, it caused much bigger problems for civilians such as fear, stress, and difficulty accessing critical services. These effects didn’t just stop after the attacks and it left lasting damage by shaking public trust and creating ongoing vulnerabilities. From a utilitarian perspective, the harm to civilians and society as a whole was far greater than any short-term benefits, making these actions unethical. By combining Taddeo’s emphasis on “war as a last resort” with utilitarianism’s principle of utility in outcomes, it’s clear that these cyberattacks were unjustified. They not only ignored non-violent options but also caused unnecessary suffering for civilians, leaving a lasting negative impact. These actions crossed ethical boundaries and failed to achieve the balance of necessity and minimal harm that the Just War theory and utilitarianism demand.

In conclusion, the cyberattacks during the Israel-Hamas conflict fail to meet the ethical standards of a just war. Using Boylan’s concept of “attack and response” and Taddeo’s idea of “war as a last resort” from their Just War theory, it’s clear these actions caused disproportionate harm to civilians without delivering meaningful military benefits. The utilitarian perspective further reveals the issue because the long-term suffering inflicted on civilians outweighs any short-term military gains. Some might argue that these cyberattacks were necessary as preemptive measures to discourage future aggression. However, this reasoning doesn’t hold up ethically because the attacks caused significant harm to civilians and violated the principle of minimizing harm. Furthermore, normalizing these tactics in cyber warfare could set a dangerous standard and make it harder to draw clear lines between civilian and military targets in future conflicts. While my analysis emphasizes the importance of setting firm ethical boundaries in cyber warfare, this dilemma raises the question of how we can effectively deter hostile actions in cyberspace while protecting civilian rights. This emphasizes the urgent need for international norms that tackle the unique challenges of cyber conflict by striking a balance between maintaining security and minimizing harm to innocent civilians.