Israeli ambassador addresses National Press Club; question time returns

Israel’s ambassador to Australia argued that there was no genocide and said his country should be “praised” for the “low number of civilians who were not actually involved” in Gaza since October 7, 2023.

Speaking to the National Press Club, Hillel Newman rejected the figure of 70,000 dead in the area, saying it was a figure provided by Hamas:

If we take into account natural deaths, a distinction is made between warriors and non-combatants. [who were] We know more or less the number of warriors killed, not the warriors. You take into account the deaths of Palestinian fire and… you end up with a ratio of 1 to 1.5. This is the lowest rate of civilian casualties in urban warfare.

There was no genocide in Gaza. Numbers don’t reflect what people on the street think because they don’t look at the numbers and then understand what the numbers mean. ratio [of civilian to combatant casulaties] after all, it is the lowest of all urban warfare, and so in many respects Israel must be commended for the small number of civilians not involved.”

In September last year, a United Nations commission of inquiry found that Israel had committed genocide in the Gaza Strip and accused the country of committing four acts of genocide: “killing, inflicting serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately disrupting the living conditions of Palestinians calculated to destroy all or part of them, and imposing measures to prevent births.”