Israeli President Says There Are No Innocent Civilians in Gaza
Israeli President Isaac Herzog said Friday that civilians in Gaza bear responsibility for the Hamas attack on southern Israel as Israeli bombs are killing scores of people in the besieged enclave.
“It is an entire nation out there that is responsible,” Herzog said, referring to Gaza, which is not recognized as an independent nation. “It is not true this rhetoric about civilians not being aware, not involved. It’s absolutely not true.”
Herzog claimed that civilians in Gaza “could have risen up. They could have fought against that evil regime which took over Gaza in a coup d’etat.”
Proponents of the collective punishment of Gaza often claim the civilians living in the enclave elected Hamas. But the last time Gazans participated in elections was in 2006, and many of the enclave’s current citizens were not at voting age or even alive at the time, as about half of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents are children.
