“Israel deeply regrets every civilian casualty, every single one. We do not target them; we do not seek them. The people of Gaza are not our enemy.’’ Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a foreign media press conference Wednesday, on the second day of a 72-hour ceasefire, to sum up Operation Protective Edge.
‘’Our enemy is Hamas.Our enemy are the other terrorist organizations trying to kill our people. And we’ve taken extraordinary circumstances and measures to avoid civilian casualties,” he added.
Palestinian sources in Gaza said that over 1,800 people were killed during Operation Protective Edge. Israel said it killed some 900 Hamas terrorists
“Ninety percent of the fatalities could have been avoided had Hamas not rejected then the ceasefire it accepts now,” Netanyahu said of an Egyptian ceasefire proposal that Israel accepted three weeks ago. “Hamas needs to be blamed for these deaths, ostracized from the family of nations.”
Netanyahu opened the press conference by showing the journalists footage from inside Gaza, both that of other journalists and from the IDF, of rockets being fired from dense civilian areas, including footage of what he said were mortars fired from near an UNRWA elementary school for boys. He also described a “terror tunnel” near a school and many tunnels dug from inside homes.
“I think it’s very important for the truth to come out,” he said, saying Hamas had subjected foreign journalists to intimidation in Gaza in recent weeks.
He also screened footage from Indian, Finnish and French TV of Hamas firing rockets from civilian areas, including the outskirts of Gaza City’s main hospital — footage that was only broadcast in the last few days.
The report on India’s NDTV by reporter Sreenivasan Jain shows a Palestinian rocket crew using a tent as cover to set up a rocket launch, then launching the rocket. The footage was recorded on Monday.
Sreenivasan notes that the Hamas rocket launch takes places “meters away from our hotel” and “bang in the middle of what is a residential area full of hotels and apartment buildings.”
He then heads to the spot from where the rocket was fired but is “asked by people not to go to the location, so we’re just pulling back…”
French TV station France 24, also showed a rocket launching pad, located about 100 yards from a United Nations building flying the blue UN flag. A hotel housing journalists covering the Gaza conflict was located about 50 yards from the launching pad, according to correspondent Gallagher Fenwick, reporting from Gaza City.
“This type of setup is at the heart of the debate,” Gallagher reported. “The Israeli army has repeatedly accused the Palestinian militants of shooting from within densely populated civilian areas and that is precisely the type of setup we have here.”
In response to a question from CNN about proportionality, Netanyahu answered, “yes, I think it was justified, I think it was proportional and that doesn’t in any way take away from the deep regret for, we have for the loss of a single civilian.”
Arguing that Israel’s battle over the past month against terrorists in Gaza using civilians as human shields came during a critical test period, he said it would be a “moral mistake” as well as a practical one to not take action against terrorists operating from mosques, schools and other civilian areas.
Such behavior would represent “an enormous victory for terrorists everywhere,” he said, and would result in more and more civilian deaths around the world.
“What’s happening now is not only a test for Israel but for the international community, for the civilized world itself, [for] how it is to defend itself.”
Hamas fired over 3,000 rockets at Israel, including 600 from near to schools, mosques and homes, the Israeli army said Tuesday. Hamas gunmen also killed 11 IDF soldiers when emerging into Israel from its cross-border tunnels. Netanyahu said Wednesday that the Hamas “death squads” had planned much larger attacks on Israeli soldiers and civilians through the tunnels, and that demolishing them, as Israel has done in recent weeks, was a strategic necessity.
64 Israeli soldiers and three civilians were killed in the campaign.
Netanyahu stressed the need to prevent Hamas from rearming. That, he said, is the way “to prevent this conflict from bring repeated.”
He said he was open to a role for the Palestinian Authority in reconstruction of Gaza and aid delivery “We have cooperated and are cooperating with the PA,” he said. “We’re prepared to see a role for them [in] the reconstruction of Gaza, humanitarian aid, security questions. The ceasefire agreement was coordinated with them.”
He also praised US Secretary of State’s John Kerry’s words about the demilitarisation of Gaza, saying he had another “very good” conversation with him on Wednesday afternoon.
As ceasefire negotiations continue in Cairo, the 72-hour truce is nearing its end. Israel said it has no problem extending the ceasefire. Early reports indicated that the temporary ceasefire was likely to be extended by two to four days, both to allow negotiations to continue and because neither side wanted to return to the conflict.
However, multiple Hamas sources have rejected this, with one specifically saying that Hamas would resume its attacks at 8am on Friday..”
Inside Israel, the de-escalation continued as the Home Front Command removed most restrictions on public gathering, summer camps and other activities and residents of Southern Israel returned to their homes and began spending time outdoors again. 27,000 reservists have been released but another 55,000 remain on duty in case the ceasefire is breached.