Al-Ata “was ready to carry out more and more terrorists attacks, including in these days. We thwarted him when we were not heading for an escalation, but we will do all that we need to defend our citizens,” the prime minister added. The rockets Islamic Jihad fired into Israel, the prime minister said, constituted war crimes.
“The central principle is simple: On one side, there are fighters, and on the other side, civilians,” he said. “You can cross this line accidentally, but not intentionally. Every army from the most moral armies in the world accidentally hits innocent people, but that is not a war crime.
“A war crime is what the terrorists in Gaza do when they shoot at us…They intentionally aim at civilians, at residential neighborhoods. When they shoot a residential neighborhood in Ashkelon, what do they think, that the army is there? It’s nonsense,” he added.
Netanyahu said he repeatedly denied requests from the defense establishment because he wanted to minimize harm to people who are not involved in attacking Israel.
“That is completely different from what those terrorists do, and there are MKs here who are defending them,” he stated.
MK Ahmed Tibi of the Joint List was removed from the plenum for repeatedly interrupting Netanyahu. As he was escorted out, he shouted: “Because of you, my family is threatened. Liar!”
Joint List MK Aida Touma-Sliman wrote on Twitter: “Netanyahu stood in the Knesset and said the IDF doesn’t commit war crimes and does not strike civilians. What about the wife of the senior Islamic Jihad commander who was killed while she was sleeping in bed with him? What about the thousands of civilians killed in our repeated rounds of war with Gaza? They’re not civilians?”
Defense Minister Naftali Bennett on Wednesday said that any terrorist who plans to attack Israel during the day will not survive the night.