Israels ambassador to U.S. defends IDFs mass roundup of men and children in Gaza

Michael Herzog:

Well, I totally disagree with that. And I reject that. We do not target civilians, and we're very careful about collateral damage.

You cite Hamas numbers from Gaza. There are no other numbers, only Hamas numbers. And the U.S. cites Hamas numbers. And we don't know exactly how many people got killed. We do know that innocent civilians got killed. It's a tragedy. It's a tragedy for every civilian getting killed.

But Hamas never tells you — putting aside not sure what the exact numbers are, an organization that carried out a massacre is capable of also putting false numbers outside. But we recognize that civilians were — got killed. But they never tell you what's the breakdown between terrorists and innocent civilians.

Our forces claim that, in fighting Gaza, in battle, we killed over 8,000 terrorists. You don't know the exact breakdown. And you don't know how many of them are women and children and how many of them are terrorists. These numbers are out by Hamas, and nobody can verify it.

And let me give you an example. When the whole world accuse Israel of targeting a hospital in Gaza a few weeks ago — I'm sure you remember that — Hamas immediately put out that 407 people got killed in that attack, where

When the whole world got to the conclusion that it was an errant Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket, the numbers dropped dramatically to dozens. Did anybody ask Hamas, where are the 471 people you claim to have killed? Do you still count them or not?

So, let's be very careful about the numbers. I am not here to claim that innocent civilians do not get killed. This is war, and it's tragic. And Hamas embedded itself in civilian population, subterranean and over the ground and used them as human shield. And this is tragic.

But nobody really knows what the exact numbers and the breakdown between terrorists and civilians. We are fighting against over 30,000 armed people in Gaza.

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