So 1-2 feet away is safe from serious injury resulting from the explosive force itself. Though the probability seems high at least some out of thousands had people standing close enough for worse, or further away and hit with shrapnel.

I’m just commenting on injury though, not making a moral or ethical judgement. That’s not an easy call when an opponent is embedded in a population of non-combatants.

At the same time, I don't think there's any reason to disbelieve accounts (and video footage) of children among the injured. Unless you're sending operatives with pistols and killing targets individually, I don't think there's a way to do a strike of this scale without killing innocents.

Actually this is probably more accurate than a pistol. Bullets miss and ricochet. Plus other people would fire back, leading to a gun fight and more deaths.