World
Q and A

'Absolutely proportionate' – Israeli journalist says military action justified despite Palestinian death count

May 16, 2021

Israeli journalist Shai Gal says most Israelis feel that the military response against Palestine is in proportion with Hamas attacks.

An Israeli journalist says action taken by the Israeli military is proportionate to the strikes Israelis are facing from Hamas.

Shai Gal told Q+A Hamas are asking for a ceasefire after being severely hit by strikes in the past six days.

Overnight in Gaza the Israeli military bombed a building that was home to foreign media including The Associated Press and Al Jazeera.

Israel claims it also had military assets belonging to the Hamas militant group, led by Ismail Haniya.

Gaza health groups say 145 Palestinians have been killed since fighting broke out six days ago, including 41 children.

Israel claims 10 of its residents have died.

But the appetite for a ceasefire is lacking for Israel, which Gal says “hasn’t achieved what she’s asked to achieve yet”.

“We are at the sixth day of this operation and according to what’s been announced yesterday, Hamas is already asking for a ceasefire.

“Because he’s [Haniya] always asking for a ceasefire at the condition where he can tell his people he got what he wanted.

“Of course, Hamas opened this fight in some dramatic achievement from his point of view. But I think In the last few days he’s been severely hit by Israel and now he’s the one who’s asking for ceasefire,” Gal said.

He says most of the Israeli pubic would agree the strike action by the military is proportionate to Hamas’ attacks, despite Palestinian civilian casualties vastly outnumbering Israeli casualties.

“It’s absolutely proportionate to what’s going on right now,” Gal said.

He says “this round started” during Jerusalem’s national day where “I would say, a dozen, hundred rockets being fired into civilian citizens, including Tel Aviv.

“My Monday night, my family were going every 10 minutes to the shelter to hide from rockets.

“I think Israel is counting almost 2000 missiles being shot at civilian areas in this round. When you count that in mind and you count the effort from the Israel army to hit back very strongly, but in a much more accurate way.

“Of course there are people who are being killed but they are not being killed intentionally,” he said.

“A family with kids being killed in Gaza – no one is happy about it. But when you have an organisation like Hamas who is actually operating from [the] civic centre, it’s inevitable.

“From the Israeli majority point of view, no one will tell you that it makes any logic, If someone is shooting missiles at your house, to say, “ok it’s fine, we’ll take that.”


SHARE ME

More Stories