Hamas fighters comprise half Gaza’s death toll: Netanyahu

Israel’s Prime Minister says almost half of those killed in the Gaza war were Hamas fighters, playing down a civilian toll that has sparked ­outrage.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a ceremony marking Memorial Day for fallen soldiers. Picture: AFP

Israel’s Prime Minister has said almost half of those killed in the Gaza war were Hamas fighters, playing down a civilian toll that has sparked ­global outrage.

Benjamin Netanyahu maintained the overall toll was lower than that given by authorities in the Palestinian territory.

According to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, at least 35,091 people have been killed in the territory during more than seven months of war between ­Israel and Palestinian militants.

But Mr Netanyahu suggested in an interview on the Call Me Back podcast conducted on Sunday that the death toll in Gaza was around 30,000 and that Hamas fighters accounted for nearly half of that toll.

Gazan authorities do not provide an overview of the number of Palestinian militants killed, but have repeatedly said that a large majority of those killed in the war have been women and children.

The UN and a long line of countries have voiced alarm at the number of civilian deaths.

UN chief Volker Turk warned in a statement last month that children especially are “disproportionately paying the ultimate price in this war”.

But Mr Netanyahu insisted that Israel had “been able to keep the ratio of civilians to combatants killed … (to) a ratio of about one to one”.

“Fourteen thousand have been killed, combatants, and probably around 16,000 civilians have been killed,” he said.

He gave similar figures in March during an interview with Politico, at a time when Gaza’s health ministry was reporting a toll of at least 31,045.

Mr Netanyahu said at the time that the figure included 13,000 militants and the number of civilians was “far less than” 20,000.

His latest comment comes at a time of intensified pressure from Israel’s chief military supplier, the US, over the Palestinian toll from the war. Washington paused ­delivery of 3500 bombs, and US President Joe Biden warned he would stop supplying artillery shells and other weapons if Israel carried out a full-scale invasion of Rafah, where around one million people are sheltering.

A US State Department report on Friday said it was “reasonable to assess” that Israel had used American arms in ways inconsistent with standards on humanitarian rights but that the United States could not reach “conclusive findings”.

AFP