Netanyahu says Hamas put Gazans in the line of fire

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accuses Hamas of deliberately putting children in the line of fire amid an outcry over the Israeli army’s killing of dozens of Palestinians, both civilians and Hamas and Islamic Jihad operatives, along the Gaza border.

The Israeli premier tells US television network CBS that troops were left with no choice but to use lethal force during protests called by Hamas intended to breach the Israel-Gaza border, and as a protest at Monday’s opening of the American embassy in Jerusalem. He says responsibility for the deaths lay entirely with the Islamist movement.

“They [Hamas] are pushing civilians — women, children — into the line of fire with a view of getting casualties,” Netanyahu told CBS.

“We’ve tried to minimize casualties, they are trying to incur casualties in order to put pressure on Israel, which is horrible,” he adds.

“These things are avoidable. If Hamas had not pushed them there nothing would happen. Hamas holds responsibility for doing this and they’re deliberately doing it.”

A string of foreign governments have voiced alarm about the use of live fire against the protesters, with Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accusing the Jewish state of “state terror” and “genocide.”

But Netanyahu says other countries would have done the same to prevent its borders being breached.

“I don’t know of any army that would do anything differently, if you had to protect your border against people who say, ‘We are going to destroy you and we are going to flood into your country,'” he says.

“You try other means, you try all sort of means, you try non-lethal means and they don’t work so you are left with bad choices, it’s a bad deal. You go for below the knee and sometimes it doesn’t work, unfortunately.”

— AFP