Former US ambassador to Tel Aviv defends Israeli killing of children in Gaza

Former US ambassador to Israel Jacob Lew, who assumed the post during the later half of the Biden administration, told The New Yorker in an interview published on Tuesday that children of alleged Hamas members in Gaza can be considered legitimate Israeli targets.

"The general pattern was that in-the-moment stories were inaccurate, and that the Israeli military and government establishment were not in a position to fully explain yet what happened after any major attack in Gaza," Lew said.

"We could almost never get answers that explained what happened before the story was fully framed in international media, and then when the facts were fully developed, it turned out that the casualties were much lower, the number of civilians was much lower, and, in many cases, the children were children of Hamas fighters, not children taking cover in places," he added.

"Sorry, what did you just say?" the interviewer asked.

"They were often the children of the fighters themselves," Lew responded.

"And therefore what follows from that?" the interviewer asked.

"What follows is that whether or not it was a legitimate military target flows from the population that’s there... If you’re the commander of a Hamas unit and you bring your family to a military site, that’s different," Lew insisted.

Israeli politicians have regularly and publicly stated that there are no innocent people in Gaza, including children. A poll conducted by an Israeli organisation has revealed that the vast majority of Israeli Jews believe there are "no innocents" in the Gaza Strip.

During the interview, Lew faced accusations of shielding Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right coalition.

Lew defended his stance after an interviewer cited his essay, which stated: “If the politics are hard, blame the United States… Allowing Netanyahu to cite a need to satisfy US demands was crucial then—and remains crucial today.”