Tel Aviv [Israel], September 8 : Eden Bar-Tal, Director General of Foreign Affairs in Israel claimed that the death and injury tolls in Gaza due to Israeli airstrikes are inflated and presented by the media.
Tal, while speaking to ANI, said that the Hamas repeats the names of the dead several times to inflate the figures.
"You saw the numbers that Hamas published, something like 60,000. I can say that there is exaggerating with those numbers, but the real numbers we know at the end. How do we know that? Because we saw in their list, sometimes the same guy died four, three, five times. And I think it's very hard to die a few times unless you believe in Bruce Willis!" he said.
Tal further explained that for the Israeli strikes on Gaza, the militant-to-civilian death ratio is much lower than what it was for other countries during strikes.
"According to external intelligence, everybody believed that there were at least 15 to 20,000 militants of Hamas that were already been killed. At least, I believe it's more than 20, but let's say the minimum is 15 to 20, probably it's higher. So in our case, we're talking about a worst-case scenario, one-to-one combat against a civilian. In comparison to the international standard, let's take the US standard when they fought against ISIS in Iraq. I believe the number was one to 27, something like that. That's the threshold for allowing an attack or not allowing an attack, the 27 civilian casualties for militants. In our case, if we take Hamas numbers, one to one, one to two, that's, no one fought more, I would say, limited in casualties to civilians than Israel. It's a world record," he said.
Tal said that Israel is fighting the crisis morally and is limiting civilian casualties.
"Don't take my word for it. Go to the professional people, experts, and military experts globally. They will give you all the analysis, their reports, and everything that you read. Israel has the number one record in safeguarding civilian life. We are, limiting attacks based on casualties to civilians. We are using bombs that, to be very, very accurate, we are using less weight of a bomb in order just to be very pinpoint," he said.
Tal further said that Israel's war ethics are unprecedented, as no other army in the world has protected civilians the way they do.
"No other army in the world ever, ever in history fought so morally as Israeli. And we are criticized sometimes by the citizens because our sons, daughters, sisters and brothers are dead. And in that case, the ones that criticize from nice offices far away, never having the obligation or the challenge to defend their own and family's lives, it's easy words," he said.
Tal said that they were fighting the crisis in the most moral way.
"We are fighting in the most moral way ever in history. Never in history was something even close to us. It's not important what others will say. It's important for us. We are the right side and we keep our moral high," he said.
Tal further appealed to people to fact check the details and not give in to such propaganda.
"Make your own examination of claims, do your own fact checking and you'll find out how many propaganda is over. I would say that also some many news outlets are aware of that. But the agenda of the editors and reporters are not to report the facts, but to convey their own personal and political thought... It's the trend that will lose trust of the audience and it will be destructive for the industry of media," he said.
Al Jazeera, quoting the Gaza's Health Authority said that Israel's strikes on Gaza killed at least 64,368 Palestinians and wounded 162,776 since October 2023. Thousands more remain buried under the rubble as famine continues to spread across the enclave.
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