The Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said that Israel is doing all that it can to minimise the number of civilian casualties in Gaza but have unfortunately “not been successful”.
Speaking to CBS in an interview, Netanyahu made comments regarding the thousands of reported deaths since Israeli forces began their operation against Hamas.
However, the Prime Minister laid the blame for the deaths of the Palestinian civilians directly on Hamas.
In the interview, Netanyahu said, “Any civilian death is a tragedy. And we shouldn’t have any because we’re doing everything we can to get the civilians out of harm’s way, while Hamas is doing everything to keep them in harm’s way.
“So, we send leaflets, (we) call them on their cell phones, and we say: ‘leave’. And many have left.
“The other thing that I can say is that we’ll try to finish that job with minimal civilian casualties. That’s what we’re trying to do. Minimal civilian casualties. But unfortunately, we’re not successful.”
Mr. Netanyahu stated in the same interview that there were “strong indications” that some of the captives had been kept at the Al Shifa Hospital but were no longer there when the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) stormed the facility.
Israel launched a weeks-long military assault in response to an offensive by Hamas that claimed 1,200 lives and left another 240 hostages, during which thousands of civilians are said to have been killed.
Ozioma Samuel-Ugwuezi
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