By Staff Reporter
The Embassy of the State of Palestine to Zimbabwe has strongly condemned what it described as Israel’s deliberate campaign of misinformation and systematic targeting of civilians in Gaza, following revelations from Israel’s own military intelligence that the majority of casualties were non-combatants.
According to the embassy’s statement, data from the Israeli Military Intelligence Directorate (Aman) revealed that 83 percent of those killed in Gaza were civilians. This directly contradicted claims by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and military chief Herzi Halevi that tens of thousands of Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters had been eliminated.
Palestinian Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Dr. Tamer Almassri, said the disclosures undermined Israeli leaders’ assertions and exposed what he called a long-standing culture of deception within Israel’s army. He accused Israel of inflating resistance fighter death tolls through unverified battlefield estimates, adding that some civilians were posthumously classified as militants.
Dr. Almassri compared the civilian death toll in Gaza to other modern conflicts, stating it far exceeded civilian casualty rates in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and Bosnia, and was approaching levels recorded during atrocities in Rwanda, Srebrenica, and Mariupol.
“These revelations confirm that Israel’s campaign in Gaza is not accidental but the deliberate outcome of a policy of mass destruction,” he said.
He further condemned the Israeli military’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.”
The Ambassador warned that Israel’s continued impunity posed a threat to global stability.
“Israel’s impunity has emboldened it to flout even the most basic principles of international law,” Dr. Almassri said. “The world will ultimately pay a heavy price for its failure to curb Israeli aggression.”
He added that the international community could no longer justify double standards when addressing Israel’s actions and urged urgent steps to prosecute what he described as war crimes.
“Israel is not a normal state but a colonial entity built upon racist settlement expansion, brutality, and a policy of eliminatory occupation,” Dr. 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 actions.”
The Palestinian mission called on global leaders, human rights organisations, and the United Nations to intervene decisively, warning that continued inaction only entrenches impunity and accelerates the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.