Online Reporter
Ivan Zhakata
Herald Correspondent
The Embassy of the State of Palestine to Zimbabwe has condemned Israel’s deliberate campaign of misinformation and systematic targeting of civilians, following revelations from Israel’s own military intelligence that most of the dead in Gaza were non-combatants.
According to the statement, internal data from the Israeli Military Intelligence Directorate (Aman) showed that 83 percent of the dead in Gaza were civilians, contradicting repeated claims by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and military chief Herzi Halevi that tens of thousands of Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters have been killed.
In a statement, Palestinian Ambassador to Zimbabwe Dr Tamer Almassri said this directly challenged the unsubstantiated assertions made by Israeli leaders.
Ambassador Almassri accused Israel of inflating resistance fighter casualty figures based on unverified battlefield estimates and a culture of deception within the army.
He said field officers allegedly admitted that many civilians were posthumously classified as terrorists.
The Ambassador compared Gaza’s civilian death toll to other modern conflicts and said it far exceeds civilian casualty rates in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Bosnia and is approaching the highest historical levels recorded in Rwanda, Srebrenica and Mariupol.
Ambassador Almassri said the revelations confirmed long-standing accusations that Israel’s campaign in Gaza is not accidental but a deliberate outcome of a policy of mass destruction.
“Israel’s impunity has emboldened it to flout even the most basic principles of international law,” he said.
“The world will ultimately pay a heavy price for its failure to curb Israeli aggression as Tel Aviv has been allowed to normalise the killing and starvation of civilians, and the targeting of journalists whose only crime is exposing its atrocities.”
He further condemned the Israeli army’s assault on the Nasser Hospital complex in Khan Younis and the killing of five journalists in a single day, describing the attack as a fascist strike carried out with political cover and direct orders from Israel’s Nazi-like military leadership.
Ambassador Almassri said the revelations left the international community with no excuse to continue double standards when addressing Israel’s conduct.
He said urgent action was required to prosecute war crimes.
“Israel is not a normal state but a colonial entity built upon racist settlement expansion, brutality, and a policy of eliminatory occupation,” Ambassador Almassri said.
“The day will soon come when Israel’s political, military and security leaders will be forced to reckon with the grave cost of their statements, actions and policies advocating ethnic cleansing, forced displacement and genocide.”
The Palestinian mission urged global leaders, rights organisations and the United Nations to intervene decisively and said inaction only entrenches impunity and accelerates the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.
