Admitting Failed To Minimize Civilian Victims In Gaza, Israeli PM Accuses Hamas Of Not Caring

The impact of the Israeli attack on Gaza. (Wikimedia Commons Fars News/Saleh Najm and Anas Sharif)

JAKARTA - Israel has sought to minimize casualties on the part of civilians during an attack on Gaza to hunt down Hamas, on the contrary accusing the Palestinian militant group of being more selfish, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

"Every civilian death is a tragedy. And we must not experience it, because we are doing everything we can to save civilians from danger, while Hamas is doing everything it can to keep them from danger," PM Netanyahu told CBS News television station. November 17th.

"So we sent leaflets, (we) called them via their cell phones, and we said: 'go away'. And many have left."

Israel bombarded and blocked a total of Gaza, after Hamas carried out an attack on the southern region of the country on October 7, leaving 1,200 people dead and 240 others hostage.

While there has been no update on the number of casualties on the Palestinian side, the state media office in Gaza on Wednesday announced that the death toll from the Israeli attack on the Gaza Strip had increased to 11,500, including 4,710 children and 3,160 women.

"The number of deaths among medical personnel has reached 200 people," the office said in a statement on Telegram, quoted by Anadolu.

Meanwhile, the number of injured people reached 29,800 people, and about 70 percent of them were children and women.

Wednesday's statement also said 95 government buildings and 255 schools had been destroyed. A total of 74 mosques were completely destroyed and 162 were partially damaged, as well as three churches.

PM Netanyahu said the goal of the Israeli military campaign was to destroy Hamas.

"Another thing I can say is that we will try to complete the work with minimal civilian casualties. That's what we are trying to do: minimal civilian casualties. But unfortunately, we didn't succeed," said PM Netanyahu.

Citing The Times of Israel, PM Netanyahu again said that his party did not want to occupy the Gaza region, but wanted the military's overall responsibility to prevent the return of terror in the Palestinian enclave.