Considered from the military point of view, the massacre at Jaffa is perhaps defensible; and Bonaparte's reluctant assent contrasts favourably with the conduct of many commanders in similar cases.

Perhaps an episode like that at Jaffa is not without its uses in opening the eyes of mankind to the ghastly shifts by which military glory may have to be won.

The alternative to the massacre was the detaching of a French battalion to conduct their prisoners to Egypt.
As that would seriously have weakened the little army, the prisoners were shot.
A deadlier foe was now to be faced.

Already at El Arisch a few cases of the plague had appeared in Kleber's division, which had come from Rosetta and Damietta; and the relics of the retreating Mameluke and Turkish forces seem also to have bequeathed that disease as a fatal legacy to their pursuers.

After Jaffa the malady attacked most battalions of the army; and it may have quickened Bonaparte's march towards Acre.