Israel says 2014 assault in Gaza 'disproportionate'

Israel's military Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot said on Wednesday that Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip in 2014 was "disproportionate".

"The Israel Defence Forces employ a policy of using aggressive and disproportionate force to prevent situations in which they fire rockets at us and we return shells," Eisenkot told a Knesset committee.

He said Israel will continue to react "proportionally" to any rocket fire.

"For us, there is one address in the strip: Hamas," he said. Hamas is a Palestinian Islamist organization that controls the besieged enclave.

On July 8, 2014, Israel launched a 51-day-long military campaign in Gaza, citing rocket fire from the strip. The war claimed the lives of at least 2,251 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and 67 Israeli soldiers, five civilians and a Thai civilian.

 

--IANS

ahm/