The Israeli newspaper “Haaretz” called for stopping the mass killing in the Gaza Strip, reducing the harm to civilians, and taking the humanitarian situation into account.
She added that it is necessary to distinguish very clearly between targeting the leaders of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and harming civilians who are not involved in the violence.
In its editorial, the newspaper pointed to the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza. From hunger, diseases, shortages of water, food and medicine, residents losing their homes and the destruction of infrastructure.
Detainees and ceasefire
Haaretz also called on the Israeli government to move forward with efforts to reach an agreement to release the detainees and prepare for a temporary ceasefire in order to release them, saying that their return is one of the highest goals of the war, and the government has no mandate to abandon them.
She presented figures about the tragedies that civilians were exposed to in the Gaza Strip, including that about 20,000 were killed. She said that this number equals 1% of the total population, and does not include the missing, who are believed to have been buried under the rubble, adding that two-thirds of the dead were women and children. She pointed out that Israel did not provide any contrary numbers.
Reality contradicted their expectations
Haaretz reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant repeatedly said that military pressure on Hamas would make it ease its demands and lead to the return of detainees, but it turned out that the reality was contrary to their expectations.
The American newspaper “The New York Times” was quoted as saying – in an investigative report last month – that the number of civilian deaths in Gaza during the current war is rising faster than it was during the American wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria.
It also quoted the American newspaper as saying that during the first six months of the war, Israel dropped bombs at least 200 times, each of which weighed a full ton.
She pointed out that the Israeli army is urging residents to move south in the Gaza Strip, as it is a safe area, but the New York Times showed that the south was not safe.