Israeli minister: Gaza casualties don’t tell the story
A top Israeli Cabinet minister on Monday rejected international criticism of Israel’s open-fire policies along the Gaza border, saying the disproportionate number of Palestinian casualties does not reflect the true story.
Speaking to foreign reporters a day before another expected outburst of violence, Yoav Gallant accused Gaza’s Hamas rulers of cynically exploiting their own repressed population to score points against Israel and urged the world not to “calculate who is right and who is wrong by the numbers of the casualties.”
The Islamic militant group has been orchestrating weekly demonstrations along the Israeli border. Over 115 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli army fire since late March, the vast majority unarmed. Over half were killed on a single day.
“In the Second World War, 7.5 million Germans were killed and only 500,000 British. So who was the aggressor, the Germans or the British?” he asked. “The issue is not the numbers. The issue is who is doing what.”
Israel has come under heavy international criticism for shooting unarmed protesters, with rights groups accusing the military of acting illegally by using deadly force from a distance when soldiers’ lives are not immediately threatened. Hundreds of people have been wounded by live fire.
The Palestinians say the protests are aimed at lifting the 11-year-old blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt and demanding their “right of return” to the Jewish state. Israel accuses Hamas of using the demonstrations as cover to carry out attacks.
Gallant, a former Israeli general who once commanded the Gaza region and a current member of the inner Security Cabinet, said Israel’s policy has been to aim at demonstrators’ legs and try to minimize casualties. But he said non-lethal means, such as rubber-coated bullets, have proven ineffective at stopping crowds from trying to break through the border fence.
He acknowledged that “mistakes” happen due to the uneven terrain and crowded demonstrations. Unarmed journalists, paramedics, minors and two women have been among the dead. Protesters often set tires on fire to make it difficult for Israeli snipers.
On Monday, the Israeli military said troops killed an axewielding Palestinian attempting to cross into Israel from Gaza.
Hamas has called for another round of mass protests on Tuesday, the 51st anniversary of the 1967 war, in which Israel captured Gaza, the West Bank and east Jerusalem. Israel withdrew troops and settlers from the Gaza Strip in 2005.
Gallant ruled out a formal truce with Hamas, which is sworn to Israel’s destruction. But he suggested that Israel would reciprocate peaceful gestures, and said Hamas is instead more interested in trying to make Israel look bad than improving conditions for its people.
“It is very sad to say but the life of a Palestinian kid in Gaza is worthless to all the Palestinians and all the Arabs unless an Israeli soldier is killing him. This is so sad and so bad,” he said. “If they want to send us flowers we will send them candies. If they want to shell us we will defend our population.”
In addition to protests and occasional rocket fire, Israel has been battling a spate of fires caused by kites from Gaza rigged with incendiary devices or attached to burning rags that have damaged forests and torched agricultural fields. The fires have disrupted daily life in communities near the Gaza Strip and caused significant destruction.
Israel announced Monday that it plans to deduct from tax funds it collects for the Palestinians to compensate the victims of the attacks.
The tax funds are transferred to the internationally backed Palestinian Authority, whose forces were ousted by Hamas in its 2007 takeover of Gaza.
The Palestinian Authority, which is based in the West Bank, slammed the move, saying it violates past agreements and called it “robbery and cowardly aggression” against the Palestinians.
Israel has previously threatened to withhold the monthly tax transfers over Palestinian actions it opposes.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office didn’t disclose how much would be deducted. Amir Dan, an official from Israel’s tax authority, told Israel’s Army Radio that agricultural damage alone stood at $1.4 million and that damage caused to nature reserves and other land could drive up the figure.
While Israel’s high-tech military has developed sophisticated means of shooting down incoming rockets and destroying Hamas’ underground tunnel network, it has been unable to find a way to stop the low-tech kites from landing in Israel and setting fields on fire.
Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman said thus far some 600 kites have been launched from Gaza, of which a third have reached Israel and started blazes that burned 2,250 acres of farmland.
He vowed to stop the phenomenon.
“I don’t tend to leave an open account, and we will settle the score with Hamas, with Islamic Jihad and the other terrorists who act against us from Gaza,” he said at parliament.
Yair Lapid, head of the opposition Yesh Atid party, said residents of southern Israel were still suffering because the government had no long-term policy about what to do with Gaza besides “waiting for the next round and waiting for the next fire.”