In an interview with CBS News on Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the Hamas terror group has endangered civilians throughout the Gaza Strip and that the Israeli side has not been entirely successful in its efforts to limit civilian casualties.
The Israeli military has been conducting military operations in the Gaza Strip in the weeks after Hamas gunmen breached the Israel-Gaza barrier and carried out mass attacks killing more than 1,400 people on Oct. 7. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) initially responded to the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks with airstrikes throughout the Gaza Strip, but Israeli forces have since proceeded to ground operations in the confined strip of land.
During the interview, CBS host Norah O’Donnell noted one Israeli goal is to deradicalize Gaza, but questioned whether civilian casualties in the ongoing fighting would only further radicalize future generations of Gazans. Mr. Netanyahu initially responded that any civilian casualties are tragic, and said the Israeli side has tried to get the civilians out of harm’s way, but said Hamas has deliberately endangered those civilians by using hospitals as bases and by firing on people using Israeli-supported humanitarian corridors to leave Gaza.
“[Hamas] think they’re safe in the underground, this Messianic theological mad cult that is fighting below, and they’re saying that, you know, ‘Damn the Palestinians above,'” Mr. Netanyahu said. “We don’t say that. We do everything we can to have them leave.”
Mr. Netanyahu then said Israeli forces will continue to pursue their goals in Gaza, which he said include eliminating Hamas, freeing the hundreds of hostages taken by Hamas on Oct. 7, and deradicalizing the Gaza Strip in the long term.
“We’ll try to finish that job with minimal civilian casualties,” he continued. “That’s what we’re trying to do; minimal civilian casualties. But unfortunately, we’re not successful.”
The Israeli prime minister did not elaborate further as to why he didn’t believe his side was fully successful at minimizing civilian casualties, but he did not directly blame Israeli forces for any civilian deaths in the ongoing conflict.
Mr. Netanyahu’s admission that the Israeli side has not seen enough success minimizing civilian casualties came a week after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said “far too many Palestinians have been killed” and more must be done to both protect civilians and ensure humanitarian assistance reaches them.
Civilian Casualties Remain Difficult To Verify
In the course of the fighting, the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry has reported thousands of civilians have been killed. As of this week, the Ministry placed the civilian casualty assessment as high as 11,000, though their claims remain unconfirmed. It’s unclear if either the Israeli or U.S. governments are developing alternate casualty assessments from the conflict.
In a Nov. 7 press briefing, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said, “We still don’t believe that taking the Ministry of Health’s numbers at face value is wise” but couldn’t provide an alternative number for civilian casualties. He then conceded “there’s no question” that the number of civilian deaths is in “the many, many thousands.”
Even if the exact number of deaths in Gaza could be immediately verified, there would still be challenges attributing blame for these deaths in an active war zone as well as determining who may have been legitimate non-combatants rather than Hamas fighters mixed in with the civilian populace.
On Oct. 17, the Gaza Health Ministry asserted that Israeli air forces were responsible for a blast at the Ahli Arab Hospital. The Gaza Health Ministry further asserted hundreds of civilians were killed in what it claimed to be an Israeli airstrike. The Israeli side denied any involvement in the blast and subsequent U.S. and Israeli intelligence assessments attributed the blast to a misfired rocket launched by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group.
On the other hand, the Israeli military has claimed credit for other military strikes that have led to disputes over whether they had actually hit Hamas combatants or civilians.
On Oct. 31, the Israeli military carried out an airstrike near Jabalia they said eliminated multiple Hamas targets. The Gaza Health Ministry, on the other hand, insisted the strike hit civilians in a designated United Nations refugee center and killed civilians.
On Nov. 3, the Israeli military also announced one of its aircraft intentionally struck an ambulance they claim was being used by a Hamas cell. Hamas officials denied the claims its fighters were using the ambulance, and the Gaza Health Ministry instead asserted the vehicle was being used to evacuate people wounded in the ongoing fighting. The Hamas-controlled Ministry further asserted 15 people were killed and 60 more were wounded in that particular strike.