Hamas not letting people leave cities, using them as shield

 Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) spokesperson Lior Haiat said on Saturday that Hamas is using the civilian population of Gaza as a shield to protect themselves and is targeting Israel from the densely populated areas.

Unfortunately, Hamas uses its own population as a human shield and the responsibility for that lies on Hamas. There is no doubt about it that Hamas is responsible for the people of Gaza. They are not letting them leave the cities. They are hiding behind them. They are shooting from population areas. Over the last week, there were over 5,000 rockets that were shot from the Gaza street towards the Israeli civilian population,” he said.

Haiat said, “There is no other country in the world that does the efforts that Israel has made in the past and in this operation in order to prevent civilian casualties. We are doing anything in our power with the highest technology in order to only hit the terrorists and the terrorist infrastructure of the Hamas terrorist organization in the Gaza Strip.”

“Israel army works and operates under the international law. As I said, there is no other country in the world that uses so much technology in order to prevent civilian casualties. We’ve heard, and unfortunately, in the last few days, in the numerous interviews that I gave talks about proportionality, I have to tell you, this word means nothing in a war against Hamas. What’s the proportionate response to a baby that was tied up, massacred, and then burned to death?” he said.

He said further, “What is the proportionate response to over 1,300 Israel casualties, most of them civilians? How do you react in a proportionate way to people who came to a music festival and were butchered in the forest? Next to that, they only came to celebrate peace, music, and life. There is no word like proportionate reaction when you deal with Hamas. Hamas is an ISIS-like terror organization, and the only way to win this war is to have them pay a huge price and to change the reality that Hamas will be able to attack Israelis ever again.”