During a portion of an interview with ABC News aired on Monday’s broadcast of “World News Tonight,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged host David Muir to avoid taking civilian death toll numbers issued by the Hamas-run Gazan health ministry at face value because they include Hamas terrorists.
Muir asked, “I know you said you’re doing everything you can to minimize civilian casualties. Obviously, the world saw the horror in Israel, the 1,400 brutally killed in that terror attack. We were on the ground for several days, as you know. But the world has now also seen the toll in Gaza. The health ministry run by Hamas now says 10,000 Palestinian civilians have been killed, 4,000 of them children. I’m not asking about Hamas here, I’m asking about the 10,000 civilians killed. Are you concerned about the number of civilians that we’ve seen lost, caught in the middle of this conflict?”
Netanyahu responded, “I think every civilian loss is a tragedy. Every civilian life lost is a tragedy. We’re fighting an enemy that is particularly brutal. They’re using their civilians as human shields. And while we’re asking the Palestinian civilian population to leave the war zone, they’re preventing them at gunpoint. They’re using them as human shields.”
Muir then asked, “I know you have told Palestinian civilians to move to the south. We know that there have been strikes in the south as well, we should just point that out. When you talk about the tactics used by Hamas, the world is aware of those tactics. Are you taking that into account, because when you start to see numbers that are difficult to wrap your head around, 10,000 Palestinian civilians, is there a more targeted approach in going after Hamas being explored here to try to minimize the number of Palestinian civilians who are not Hamas, who are not militants, who have lost their lives here?”
Netanyahu responded, “The answer is yes. First of all, I wouldn’t take those numbers at face value. I think we have to check them, and there are quite a few — several thousand Palestinian combatants there, that is Hamas terrorists that are incorporated in those numbers. It’s a very tough enemy, but we can’t let them have immunity. If we let them have immunity, David, then the barbarians win.”
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