7 aug 2014
Children Killed In Gaza
Palestinian medical sources at the al-Maqassed Hospital in occupied Jerusalem have reported that a Palestinian man from Gaza died of wounds suffered a week ago, in an Israeli bombardment of Khan Younis, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.
The sources said Mohammad Jom’a Najjar, 32, was seriously wounded when the army bombarded his home, in Gaza City, and was moved to the European Hospital, in Khan Younis, where he stayed for six says before he was moved on Wednesday to the al-Maqassed Hospital.
A ceremony will be held in occupied Jerusalem, Thursday, before he is moved to the Gaza Strip for official burial ceremony, medical sources said.
In its latest report, the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza said 1886 Palestinians were killed by Israeli missiles and shells in the Gaza Strip since July 8, and around 9806 Palestinians have been injured, dozens seriously.
It said the army killed 432 children, 243 women, 21 medics, and 85 elderly Palestinians, and injured 2979 children, 1903 women, and 374 elderly.
Palestinian medical sources at the al-Maqassed Hospital in occupied Jerusalem have reported that a Palestinian man from Gaza died of wounds suffered a week ago, in an Israeli bombardment of Khan Younis, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.
The sources said Mohammad Jom’a Najjar, 32, was seriously wounded when the army bombarded his home, in Gaza City, and was moved to the European Hospital, in Khan Younis, where he stayed for six says before he was moved on Wednesday to the al-Maqassed Hospital.
A ceremony will be held in occupied Jerusalem, Thursday, before he is moved to the Gaza Strip for official burial ceremony, medical sources said.
In its latest report, the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza said 1886 Palestinians were killed by Israeli missiles and shells in the Gaza Strip since July 8, and around 9806 Palestinians have been injured, dozens seriously.
It said the army killed 432 children, 243 women, 21 medics, and 85 elderly Palestinians, and injured 2979 children, 1903 women, and 374 elderly.
Egyptian-mediated Palestinian-Israeli ceasefire talks are “ongoing” but hitting various obstacles which could turn the current calm into a new round of confrontation. Palestinian official says reports of an additional ceasefire extension are baseless.
Egyptian sources said that Israel presented several demands and preconditions for maintaining the ceasefire, topped by a central demand that calls for completely disarming the resistance in the Gaza Strip.
The sources added that Israel also expressed what was described as “reservations” over certain Palestinian demands, especially regarding establishing an international airport and seaport in the Gaza Strip, but reportedly agreed to “lift the siege on Gaza”, to release Palestinian detainees, and to allow the fishermen to fish in Palestinian waters without harassment and attacks.
Egypt is reportedly trying to convince Tel Aviv to drop their demand regarding the full disarmament of the Gaza Strip, and to agree to the rest of the demands, the Maan News Agency has reported.
The Egyptian mediators are currently trying to ensure extending the current temporary ceasefire, while the Israeli negotiators said they have to present the developments to their leadership in Tel Aviv before making any decision.
Israeli officials allege Tel Aviv is interesting in extending the ceasefire, and in holding further indirect talks with the resistance in Gaza through the Egyptian mediator.
Maan quoted Egyptian officials describing talks with the Israeli side as very difficult, especially since Tel Aviv insists of disarming the resistance.
Meanwhile, the head of the Palestinian delegation for truce talks in Cairo, Azzam al-Ahmad, said all reports regarding extending the truce are baseless, adding that such reports are meant to create obstacles in front the Egyptian and Palestinian delegations.
“There is nothing new regarding the truce, we all initially agreed on a 72-hour truce”, he said. “We have until Friday morning.”
The official added that some Israeli media outlets are making inaccurate reports which aim at obstructing and hindering the ongoing efforts of Palestinian negotiators and the Egyptian efforts to reach an acceptable agreement.
His comments came after Haaretz quoted an Israeli official stating that Israel agreed to extend the 72-hour temporary ceasefire as part of a deal brokered by Egypt, while Hamas said no agreement was reached, and the fighting could resume if Israel continues to ignore the Palestinian demands.
Israeli officials claim the army managed “to achieve its objectives”, allegedly after destroying “all known tunnels used by Hamas to breach the border and carry out attacks against the army”.
Meanwhile, Israeli Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, asked U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, on Wednesday, to support Israel in preventing the adoption of what he called “anti-Israel” UN Security Council resolutions.
On his part, senior political leader of the the Hamas movement, Ismael Haniyya, stated that “while Israel failed to achieve its goals by force during the war, it is demanding the resistance to surrender to its demands through politics”.
He added that Hamas stands behind the unified Palestinian team, and all political moves “especially the efforts of Egypt, Qatar and Turkey", and that he believes “Arab and Egyptian brothers are working to ensure ending the Israeli siege on Gaza”.
“Our military victory leads to lifting this siege,” Haniyya said.
Various Palestinian political leaders said the Palestinian demands are legitimate, and are meant to end the illegitimate and deadly Israeli siege on Gaza, and to stop the Israeli violations and assaults.
In its latest report, the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza said 1886 Palestinians were killed by Israeli missiles and shells in the Gaza Strip since July 8, and around 9806 Palestinians have been injured, dozens seriously.
It said the army killed 432 children, 243 women, 21 medics, and 85 elderly Palestinians, and injured 2979 children, 1903 women, and 374 elderly.
Egyptian sources said that Israel presented several demands and preconditions for maintaining the ceasefire, topped by a central demand that calls for completely disarming the resistance in the Gaza Strip.
The sources added that Israel also expressed what was described as “reservations” over certain Palestinian demands, especially regarding establishing an international airport and seaport in the Gaza Strip, but reportedly agreed to “lift the siege on Gaza”, to release Palestinian detainees, and to allow the fishermen to fish in Palestinian waters without harassment and attacks.
Egypt is reportedly trying to convince Tel Aviv to drop their demand regarding the full disarmament of the Gaza Strip, and to agree to the rest of the demands, the Maan News Agency has reported.
The Egyptian mediators are currently trying to ensure extending the current temporary ceasefire, while the Israeli negotiators said they have to present the developments to their leadership in Tel Aviv before making any decision.
Israeli officials allege Tel Aviv is interesting in extending the ceasefire, and in holding further indirect talks with the resistance in Gaza through the Egyptian mediator.
Maan quoted Egyptian officials describing talks with the Israeli side as very difficult, especially since Tel Aviv insists of disarming the resistance.
Meanwhile, the head of the Palestinian delegation for truce talks in Cairo, Azzam al-Ahmad, said all reports regarding extending the truce are baseless, adding that such reports are meant to create obstacles in front the Egyptian and Palestinian delegations.
“There is nothing new regarding the truce, we all initially agreed on a 72-hour truce”, he said. “We have until Friday morning.”
The official added that some Israeli media outlets are making inaccurate reports which aim at obstructing and hindering the ongoing efforts of Palestinian negotiators and the Egyptian efforts to reach an acceptable agreement.
His comments came after Haaretz quoted an Israeli official stating that Israel agreed to extend the 72-hour temporary ceasefire as part of a deal brokered by Egypt, while Hamas said no agreement was reached, and the fighting could resume if Israel continues to ignore the Palestinian demands.
Israeli officials claim the army managed “to achieve its objectives”, allegedly after destroying “all known tunnels used by Hamas to breach the border and carry out attacks against the army”.
Meanwhile, Israeli Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, asked U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, on Wednesday, to support Israel in preventing the adoption of what he called “anti-Israel” UN Security Council resolutions.
On his part, senior political leader of the the Hamas movement, Ismael Haniyya, stated that “while Israel failed to achieve its goals by force during the war, it is demanding the resistance to surrender to its demands through politics”.
He added that Hamas stands behind the unified Palestinian team, and all political moves “especially the efforts of Egypt, Qatar and Turkey", and that he believes “Arab and Egyptian brothers are working to ensure ending the Israeli siege on Gaza”.
“Our military victory leads to lifting this siege,” Haniyya said.
Various Palestinian political leaders said the Palestinian demands are legitimate, and are meant to end the illegitimate and deadly Israeli siege on Gaza, and to stop the Israeli violations and assaults.
In its latest report, the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza said 1886 Palestinians were killed by Israeli missiles and shells in the Gaza Strip since July 8, and around 9806 Palestinians have been injured, dozens seriously.
It said the army killed 432 children, 243 women, 21 medics, and 85 elderly Palestinians, and injured 2979 children, 1903 women, and 374 elderly.
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Irish senator and former presidential candidate David Norris made a powerful speech on 31 July condemning Israel’s massacre in Gaza and the complcity of American, Irish and other European governments.
Norris called for the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador. The eight-minute speech can be seen in the video above. Meanwhile, UK Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has given public backing to an arms embargo on Israel. Excerpts from the official transcript of Norris’ speech: |
In the 40 years that I have known the State of Israel and sometimes had a home there, I have seen it completely change. It changed from a left-wing, socially directed country to an extreme right-wing regime that is behaving in the most criminal fashion, defying the world and unscrupulously using the Holocaust to justify what they are doing. It is time that rag was torn away from them.
On Israel’s violence:
Entire families have been obliterated and in one case, 20 members of the same family were slaughtered. Also, a disproportionate amount of women and children have been killed in this situation, which is a violation of all the spiritual beauty that Judaism stands for – the respect for life and the fact that if one saves one life then one has saved the universe. All of that is blown out of the window and done so, as I saw, by the arrival of 1,200,000 extreme right-wing former citizens of the Soviet Union.
It is time people told the truth about what is being said in Israel. For example, the interior Minister, Eli Yishai, stated in 2012 that Israel would send Gaza back to the Middle Ages. Defence deputy Minister Matan Vilnai stated that it would visit the Holocaust on the Palestinians. That is Nazi talk. I am not saying that he is a Nazi but what he is saying makes him sound like a Nazi.
On the US role:
America has a shameful role to play in this. Israel could not get away with these disgraceful acts of international piracy and brigandage if it was not for the protecting shadow of the United States of America. I condemn President Obama for his utter inaction.
On Irish complicity:
We do not even mark a protest note with our vote at the United Nations Human Rights Commission. That is shameful – absolutely shameful. I would have interjected that it had been better to be one country in the right than be with all the rest of them in the wrong.
Norris’ reference to “Nazi talk” is bound to attract Israeli lobby criticism, but defenders are likely to point to other genocidal statements by Israeli politicians including rising-star lawmaker Ayelet Shaked’s call for killing Palestinian mothers because they give birth to “little snakes,” and the deputy speaker of the Israeli parliament Moshe Feiglin’s call for Palestinians to be put in concentration camps and expelled and for Israel to populate Gaza with Jews.
UK deputy prime minister backs arms embargo Norris, a long-time supporter of Palestinian rights, was forced to pull his candidacy for the Irish presidency in 2011 after a concerted smear campaign by anti-Palestinian activists.
But now other mainstream politicians in Europe are starting to break their silence.
Yesterday, Sayeeda Warsi, the senior minister of state in the UK Foreign Office, and a member of Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservative Party, resigned from the government over its support for Israel’s attack on Gaza.
on Twitter “For me it’s morally indefensible where after four weeks of a conflict more than a quarter of the Gazan population displaced, nearly two thousand people killed … four hundred innocent children killed – we still cannot find the words to say we condemn this and that we feel that this action has been disproportionate,” she told the UK’s Channel 4.
In his response to Warsi, [PDF] Cameron reaffirmed his support for the Israeli attack: “Of course, we believe that Israel has the right to defend itself. But we have consistently made clear our grave concerns about the heavy toll of civilian casualties and have called on Israel to exercise restraint, and to find ways to bring this fighting to an end.”
Following Warsi’s resignation, leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, tweeted that he now supports an arms embargo on Israel.
on Twitter This has been a key demand of campaigners, highlighted when protestors shut down a factory yesterday, one of two UK subsidiaries of Israeli arms firm Elbit.
Spain this week announced that it was freezing arms exports to Israel.
These are signs that even career politicians can no longer risk ignoring the overwhelming public horror in Europe against Israel’s massacre.
On Israel’s violence:
Entire families have been obliterated and in one case, 20 members of the same family were slaughtered. Also, a disproportionate amount of women and children have been killed in this situation, which is a violation of all the spiritual beauty that Judaism stands for – the respect for life and the fact that if one saves one life then one has saved the universe. All of that is blown out of the window and done so, as I saw, by the arrival of 1,200,000 extreme right-wing former citizens of the Soviet Union.
It is time people told the truth about what is being said in Israel. For example, the interior Minister, Eli Yishai, stated in 2012 that Israel would send Gaza back to the Middle Ages. Defence deputy Minister Matan Vilnai stated that it would visit the Holocaust on the Palestinians. That is Nazi talk. I am not saying that he is a Nazi but what he is saying makes him sound like a Nazi.
On the US role:
America has a shameful role to play in this. Israel could not get away with these disgraceful acts of international piracy and brigandage if it was not for the protecting shadow of the United States of America. I condemn President Obama for his utter inaction.
On Irish complicity:
We do not even mark a protest note with our vote at the United Nations Human Rights Commission. That is shameful – absolutely shameful. I would have interjected that it had been better to be one country in the right than be with all the rest of them in the wrong.
Norris’ reference to “Nazi talk” is bound to attract Israeli lobby criticism, but defenders are likely to point to other genocidal statements by Israeli politicians including rising-star lawmaker Ayelet Shaked’s call for killing Palestinian mothers because they give birth to “little snakes,” and the deputy speaker of the Israeli parliament Moshe Feiglin’s call for Palestinians to be put in concentration camps and expelled and for Israel to populate Gaza with Jews.
UK deputy prime minister backs arms embargo Norris, a long-time supporter of Palestinian rights, was forced to pull his candidacy for the Irish presidency in 2011 after a concerted smear campaign by anti-Palestinian activists.
But now other mainstream politicians in Europe are starting to break their silence.
Yesterday, Sayeeda Warsi, the senior minister of state in the UK Foreign Office, and a member of Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservative Party, resigned from the government over its support for Israel’s attack on Gaza.
on Twitter “For me it’s morally indefensible where after four weeks of a conflict more than a quarter of the Gazan population displaced, nearly two thousand people killed … four hundred innocent children killed – we still cannot find the words to say we condemn this and that we feel that this action has been disproportionate,” she told the UK’s Channel 4.
In his response to Warsi, [PDF] Cameron reaffirmed his support for the Israeli attack: “Of course, we believe that Israel has the right to defend itself. But we have consistently made clear our grave concerns about the heavy toll of civilian casualties and have called on Israel to exercise restraint, and to find ways to bring this fighting to an end.”
Following Warsi’s resignation, leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, tweeted that he now supports an arms embargo on Israel.
on Twitter This has been a key demand of campaigners, highlighted when protestors shut down a factory yesterday, one of two UK subsidiaries of Israeli arms firm Elbit.
Spain this week announced that it was freezing arms exports to Israel.
These are signs that even career politicians can no longer risk ignoring the overwhelming public horror in Europe against Israel’s massacre.
“As Israel announces the withdrawal of its troops from the Gaza Strip, Reporters Without Borders (RWB) reports that 12 Palestinian journalists and one media worker have been killed since the start of Operation Protective Edge on 8 July,” said the international organization, according to WAFA.
In a Tuesday statement, RWB said that seven of the journalists were killed “in connection with their work. This is the highest toll since Israel withdrew in 2005.”
The latest victim is head of the Saja News Agency, Hamada Khaled Makat, who was killed by an Israeli air strike in northern Gaza City. According to the Palestinian Journalists’ Union, Makat was killed just outside his home at dawn after going outside to cover the air strikes.
Two other Palestinian journalists died on August 2nd, also as a result of Israeli air strikes, RWB stated.
“One was Mohamed Noureddin Al-Dairi, 26, a photographer with the Palestinian Network for Journalism and Media, who died from the injuries he received while covering an air raid on Shuja’eyya market on 30 July. He was not pulled from the rubble until two days after the raid. The overall death toll from the raid on the Shuja’eyya neighborhood was 17 civilians, including three journalists.”
The other media fatality on August 2nd was freelance journalist Shadi Hamdi Ayad, age 24, killed in his home by an Israeli air strike on the neighborhood of Al-Zaytoun, in southeastern Gaza City.
His father was also killed, according to the report.
Abdullah Nasr Fahjan, 21, a sports journalist with Hamas' Al-Aqsa TV, was killed on August 1st, during the Israeli bombing of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip.
“Whether these journalists and media workers were killed in indiscriminate air raids or were deliberately targeted, their deaths should be independently investigated and those responsible should be identified,” said RWB assistant research director Virginie Dangles, in response to the news.
“Journalists should not be targeted by belligerents, who must respect the Geneva Conventions and their additional protocols, as well as UN Security Council Resolution 1738, adopted in 2006.”
In a Tuesday statement, RWB said that seven of the journalists were killed “in connection with their work. This is the highest toll since Israel withdrew in 2005.”
The latest victim is head of the Saja News Agency, Hamada Khaled Makat, who was killed by an Israeli air strike in northern Gaza City. According to the Palestinian Journalists’ Union, Makat was killed just outside his home at dawn after going outside to cover the air strikes.
Two other Palestinian journalists died on August 2nd, also as a result of Israeli air strikes, RWB stated.
“One was Mohamed Noureddin Al-Dairi, 26, a photographer with the Palestinian Network for Journalism and Media, who died from the injuries he received while covering an air raid on Shuja’eyya market on 30 July. He was not pulled from the rubble until two days after the raid. The overall death toll from the raid on the Shuja’eyya neighborhood was 17 civilians, including three journalists.”
The other media fatality on August 2nd was freelance journalist Shadi Hamdi Ayad, age 24, killed in his home by an Israeli air strike on the neighborhood of Al-Zaytoun, in southeastern Gaza City.
His father was also killed, according to the report.
Abdullah Nasr Fahjan, 21, a sports journalist with Hamas' Al-Aqsa TV, was killed on August 1st, during the Israeli bombing of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip.
“Whether these journalists and media workers were killed in indiscriminate air raids or were deliberately targeted, their deaths should be independently investigated and those responsible should be identified,” said RWB assistant research director Virginie Dangles, in response to the news.
“Journalists should not be targeted by belligerents, who must respect the Geneva Conventions and their additional protocols, as well as UN Security Council Resolution 1738, adopted in 2006.”
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'You can shoot' - was Gaza killing a war crime?
Was the killing of unarmed Salem Shamali in Gaza a war crime? The first shocking allegations about what the Israeli unit on the ground were ordered to do. |
6 aug 2014
USPCN Action Alert: Prof. Steven Salaita Fired for Public Activism on Palestine and #GazaUnderAttack
AKE ACTION: Demand that UIUC Reinstate Dr. Steven Salaita NOW!
USPCN demands the immediate reinstatement of Palestinian American professor Dr. Steven Salaita, and calls on all its members, and people of conscience across the country and world, to again resist the violations of academic freedom that have become commonplace in the U.S.
The University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) must hear from every single one of us, and must know that our brother Dr. Salaita has an entire community that supports him. UIUC’s firing of Dr. Salaita translates into support for Israel’s racism, occupation, and reaction, especially now, while Israel is on another murderous rampage against our people.
SIGN THIS PETITION: TAKE MORE ACTION: Professor Steven Salaita has been FIRED by the University of Illinois (don’t let them call it just “declining to hire” – Steven had a signed contract and had relied on it to quit his prior faculty post, obtain housing and childcare, etc) because of his tweets and public activism about the Israeli assault on Gaza and Palestine.
This is an outrage and a direct threat to academic freedom and the freedom of all who advocate for justice in #Palestine. Take action today: Protest the firing of Steven Salaita by calling or sending an email to the office of Chancellor Wise (217) 333-8819 [email protected] and [email protected] .
Please also copy Robert Warrior, chair of the Department of American Indian Studies (which has supported Salaita’s hiring) and the Department itself on your letter: Robert Warrior, [email protected] - American Indian Studies, [email protected]. The department must know that Professor Salaita has support!
Demand that Salaita’s contract be immediately reinstated and that the University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign end its violations of academic freedom.Salaita’s academic and teaching record are unassailed – this matter is entirely about his public activism and refusal to back down or legitimize racism and Zionism.
USPCN demands the immediate reinstatement of Palestinian American professor Dr. Steven Salaita, and calls on all its members, and people of conscience across the country and world, to again resist the violations of academic freedom that have become commonplace in the U.S.
The University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) must hear from every single one of us, and must know that our brother Dr. Salaita has an entire community that supports him. UIUC’s firing of Dr. Salaita translates into support for Israel’s racism, occupation, and reaction, especially now, while Israel is on another murderous rampage against our people.
SIGN THIS PETITION: TAKE MORE ACTION: Professor Steven Salaita has been FIRED by the University of Illinois (don’t let them call it just “declining to hire” – Steven had a signed contract and had relied on it to quit his prior faculty post, obtain housing and childcare, etc) because of his tweets and public activism about the Israeli assault on Gaza and Palestine.
This is an outrage and a direct threat to academic freedom and the freedom of all who advocate for justice in #Palestine. Take action today: Protest the firing of Steven Salaita by calling or sending an email to the office of Chancellor Wise (217) 333-8819 [email protected] and [email protected] .
Please also copy Robert Warrior, chair of the Department of American Indian Studies (which has supported Salaita’s hiring) and the Department itself on your letter: Robert Warrior, [email protected] - American Indian Studies, [email protected]. The department must know that Professor Salaita has support!
Demand that Salaita’s contract be immediately reinstated and that the University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign end its violations of academic freedom.Salaita’s academic and teaching record are unassailed – this matter is entirely about his public activism and refusal to back down or legitimize racism and Zionism.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday launched a vigorous defence of Israel's month-long conflict in Gaza as "justified" and "proportionate," blaming Hamas for the heavy Palestinian civilian death toll.
"I think it was justified. I think it was proportionate and that doesn't in any way take away the deep regret we have for the loss of a single civilian casualty," he told a news conference in Jerusalem in response to a question from the US news channel CNN.
He said it would have been disproportionate to not "defend your people and giving the terrorists a license to kill."
In his first public remarks since a 72-hour ceasefire came into effect on Tuesday, Netanyahu told local and foreign journalists that the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas was to blame for the heavy destruction and civilian casualties.
"The tragedy of Gaza is that is it ruled by Hamas," he said.
Netanyahu showed reporters aerial images of homes and of a UN-run school, from which he said Hamas fired mortars and rockets during the conflict.
Israel lost 67 people during the fighting -- 64 soldiers and three civilians, one of them a Thai worker. Palestinian medics said 1,875 Gazans died, including 430 children and 243 women.
Netanyahu said Hamas fighters deliberately increased the death toll by hiding behind human shields, and firing rockets towards Israel from civilian areas.
He said it would have been a "mistake" not to allow Israel to defend itself against Hamas rocket attacks because the Palestinian fighters allegedly fired from mosques and schools.
"If this were to happen, more and more civilians will die around the world because this is a testing period," he said.
"Can a terrorist organization fire thousands of rockets at the cities of a democracy?"
Netanyahu called on the international community, much of which has been critical of Israel over the devastation and human suffering in Gaza, to ostracize Hamas "for its callous abuse of civilians."
"Every civilian casualty is a tragedy, a tragedy of Hamas's own making," he added.
Israel has refused to deal with a Palestinian unity government that emerged after Hamas signed a deal with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in April following years of bitter rivalry.
Role for Abbas's PA
But Netanyahu said Israel was cooperating with the Abbas-led Palestinian Authority.
"We are cooperating with them and we are prepared to see a role for them," he said.
"It is important in the reconstruction of Gaza, assuring the humanitarian aid and also the security questions that arise that we have these discussions and cooperation," he premier added.
"In fact the ceasefire was coordinated among other things with them."
Netanyahu also sought to address reports that Israeli-US relations took a knock over the offensive, following tough criticism in Washington over civilian casualties.
He said he spoke to US Secretary of State John Kerry on Wednesday by telephone and welcomed remarks that Washington's top diplomat made calling for the demilitarisation of Gaza.
"We work very closely with him, with the US administration with President (Barack) Obama throughout this operation and before," he said.
"I think it was justified. I think it was proportionate and that doesn't in any way take away the deep regret we have for the loss of a single civilian casualty," he told a news conference in Jerusalem in response to a question from the US news channel CNN.
He said it would have been disproportionate to not "defend your people and giving the terrorists a license to kill."
In his first public remarks since a 72-hour ceasefire came into effect on Tuesday, Netanyahu told local and foreign journalists that the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas was to blame for the heavy destruction and civilian casualties.
"The tragedy of Gaza is that is it ruled by Hamas," he said.
Netanyahu showed reporters aerial images of homes and of a UN-run school, from which he said Hamas fired mortars and rockets during the conflict.
Israel lost 67 people during the fighting -- 64 soldiers and three civilians, one of them a Thai worker. Palestinian medics said 1,875 Gazans died, including 430 children and 243 women.
Netanyahu said Hamas fighters deliberately increased the death toll by hiding behind human shields, and firing rockets towards Israel from civilian areas.
He said it would have been a "mistake" not to allow Israel to defend itself against Hamas rocket attacks because the Palestinian fighters allegedly fired from mosques and schools.
"If this were to happen, more and more civilians will die around the world because this is a testing period," he said.
"Can a terrorist organization fire thousands of rockets at the cities of a democracy?"
Netanyahu called on the international community, much of which has been critical of Israel over the devastation and human suffering in Gaza, to ostracize Hamas "for its callous abuse of civilians."
"Every civilian casualty is a tragedy, a tragedy of Hamas's own making," he added.
Israel has refused to deal with a Palestinian unity government that emerged after Hamas signed a deal with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in April following years of bitter rivalry.
Role for Abbas's PA
But Netanyahu said Israel was cooperating with the Abbas-led Palestinian Authority.
"We are cooperating with them and we are prepared to see a role for them," he said.
"It is important in the reconstruction of Gaza, assuring the humanitarian aid and also the security questions that arise that we have these discussions and cooperation," he premier added.
"In fact the ceasefire was coordinated among other things with them."
Netanyahu also sought to address reports that Israeli-US relations took a knock over the offensive, following tough criticism in Washington over civilian casualties.
He said he spoke to US Secretary of State John Kerry on Wednesday by telephone and welcomed remarks that Washington's top diplomat made calling for the demilitarisation of Gaza.
"We work very closely with him, with the US administration with President (Barack) Obama throughout this operation and before," he said.
A Palestinian man mourns at the morgue of a hospital in Rafah over the bodies of some of the nine members of the same al-Ghoul family who were killed along with other Palestinians after their house was hit by an Israeli air strike on Aug. 3, 2014
For days bodies filled the morgues. Only since guns fell silent have volunteers come to dig graves in the sand in Rafah, Gaza's "town of martyrs," devastated by Israeli bombardment.
For three days the strategic southern town went through hell.
"The tanks came," says Mohammed Abu Luli, 50, who fled his home after the bombardment started.
"There were strikes from air, land and sea. The bombs rained down everywhere. I have never seen anything like it in all my life," he added.
In neighborhoods, houses lie flattened or ripped open by shelling. Asphalt on the road has been ripped up by the weight of Israeli tanks.
At the end of one field of rubble lies a strange, gaping hole: a tunnel used by Hamas fighters.
Rafah experienced some of the worst fighting during the month-long war between Israel and Hamas.
The bombardment intensified when an August 1 truce between both sides unraveled in just 90 minutes after Hamas attacked an Israeli unit, killing three soldiers, after Israeli forces deployed heavily in the area and killed 16 overnight.
Hamas says the attack occurred before the ceasefire began and that Israel continued into the ceasefire, a claim Israel disputes.
The army shot back with a bloody and prolonged assault on Rafah, under which ran a network of tunnels that Hamas used to smuggle basic supplies and sometimes weapons from Egypt due to an eight-year long blockade.
Israel initially said Lieutenant Hadar Goldin had probably been snatched by Hamas fighters.
The last Israeli soldier kidnapped by Hamas, Gilad Shalit, was held hostage five years before being freed in exchange for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.
On Sunday, Israel eventually confirmed Goldin's death after DNA tests on body parts found in a tunnel.
Israel sustained some of its worst losses from Hamas fighters who burst out of their carefully built tunnels to ambushed stunned soldiers.
Morgues overflowed
This was how Hamas attacked Goldin and his unit.
"Our fighters came out behind the tanks and sprayed them with bullets and rockets," one fighter told AFP in Rafah on Tuesday before running off.
On Wednesday at dawn, a digger churned up and dumped sand on top of the tunnel under close gaze of militants clearly hostile to the presence of cameras, demanding that footage be wiped.
Mohammed's brother Mahmud Abu Luli was sheltering in a UN school in the center of Rafah.
"But there was an Israeli bombardment just outside the school, in the street. I saw everything, there was a pool of blood on the ground," he said behind his bushy white beard.
"Rafah is a town of martyrs!" he adds as men standing by nod in a agreement and children collect pieces of shell and mortar from the ground.
Combat was so intense that local residents were trapped inside, unable to bury their dead on the same day or even the next, as Muslim tradition requires.
It was not until after Israel and Hamas agreed to a 72-hour truce, begun on Tuesday, that residents in Rafah could start to come out and bury the dead, kept until then in chock-a-block morgues.
Even morgues overflowed.
"We had to use all the places in the hospital and neighbors' houses and rental refrigerators for vegetables and put the bodies in them. The situation was a tragedy," said Mohammed al-Masri, director of the small Kuwaiti Hospital in Rafah.
In a cemetery just 100 meters (yards) from the Egyptian border, men dig trenches in the sand and put in cement blocks to form small tomb-like rectangles. Each body is placed in a rectangle, then the whole space covered up into a mass grave.
Thirty little anonymous mounds quickly form in the sand. Outside the cemetery a group of relatives mourn the death of Sumaya Abid Duhair, a nurse killed in an air strike on her house.
"We have to keep working because other bodies will be buried here," says Nidal Shalagel, a volunteer in his 30s. "That's enough. We need peace. No one likes death."
For days bodies filled the morgues. Only since guns fell silent have volunteers come to dig graves in the sand in Rafah, Gaza's "town of martyrs," devastated by Israeli bombardment.
For three days the strategic southern town went through hell.
"The tanks came," says Mohammed Abu Luli, 50, who fled his home after the bombardment started.
"There were strikes from air, land and sea. The bombs rained down everywhere. I have never seen anything like it in all my life," he added.
In neighborhoods, houses lie flattened or ripped open by shelling. Asphalt on the road has been ripped up by the weight of Israeli tanks.
At the end of one field of rubble lies a strange, gaping hole: a tunnel used by Hamas fighters.
Rafah experienced some of the worst fighting during the month-long war between Israel and Hamas.
The bombardment intensified when an August 1 truce between both sides unraveled in just 90 minutes after Hamas attacked an Israeli unit, killing three soldiers, after Israeli forces deployed heavily in the area and killed 16 overnight.
Hamas says the attack occurred before the ceasefire began and that Israel continued into the ceasefire, a claim Israel disputes.
The army shot back with a bloody and prolonged assault on Rafah, under which ran a network of tunnels that Hamas used to smuggle basic supplies and sometimes weapons from Egypt due to an eight-year long blockade.
Israel initially said Lieutenant Hadar Goldin had probably been snatched by Hamas fighters.
The last Israeli soldier kidnapped by Hamas, Gilad Shalit, was held hostage five years before being freed in exchange for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.
On Sunday, Israel eventually confirmed Goldin's death after DNA tests on body parts found in a tunnel.
Israel sustained some of its worst losses from Hamas fighters who burst out of their carefully built tunnels to ambushed stunned soldiers.
Morgues overflowed
This was how Hamas attacked Goldin and his unit.
"Our fighters came out behind the tanks and sprayed them with bullets and rockets," one fighter told AFP in Rafah on Tuesday before running off.
On Wednesday at dawn, a digger churned up and dumped sand on top of the tunnel under close gaze of militants clearly hostile to the presence of cameras, demanding that footage be wiped.
Mohammed's brother Mahmud Abu Luli was sheltering in a UN school in the center of Rafah.
"But there was an Israeli bombardment just outside the school, in the street. I saw everything, there was a pool of blood on the ground," he said behind his bushy white beard.
"Rafah is a town of martyrs!" he adds as men standing by nod in a agreement and children collect pieces of shell and mortar from the ground.
Combat was so intense that local residents were trapped inside, unable to bury their dead on the same day or even the next, as Muslim tradition requires.
It was not until after Israel and Hamas agreed to a 72-hour truce, begun on Tuesday, that residents in Rafah could start to come out and bury the dead, kept until then in chock-a-block morgues.
Even morgues overflowed.
"We had to use all the places in the hospital and neighbors' houses and rental refrigerators for vegetables and put the bodies in them. The situation was a tragedy," said Mohammed al-Masri, director of the small Kuwaiti Hospital in Rafah.
In a cemetery just 100 meters (yards) from the Egyptian border, men dig trenches in the sand and put in cement blocks to form small tomb-like rectangles. Each body is placed in a rectangle, then the whole space covered up into a mass grave.
Thirty little anonymous mounds quickly form in the sand. Outside the cemetery a group of relatives mourn the death of Sumaya Abid Duhair, a nurse killed in an air strike on her house.
"We have to keep working because other bodies will be buried here," says Nidal Shalagel, a volunteer in his 30s. "That's enough. We need peace. No one likes death."
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Truce violations List of names Pictures of martyrs
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Days: Aug: 26 - 25 - 24 - 23 - 22 - 21 - 20 - 19 - 18 - 17 - 16 - 15 - 14 - 13 - 12 - 11 - 10 - 9 - 8 - 7 - 6 - 5 - 4 - 3 - 2 - 1
July: 31 - 30 - 29 - 28 - 27 - 26 - 25 - 24 - 23 - 22 - 21 - 20 - 19 - 18 - 17 - 16 - 15 - 14 - 13 - 12 - 11 - 10 - 9 - 8
