Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Wednesday evening met with a senior delegation of AIPAC members in his Jerusalem office.

The Prime Minister updated the delegation members on the situation in Gaza and said: “The most important distinction in international law and specifically about the rules of war is that here is a dividing line. On one side are combatants; on the other side are non-combatants. He added that one “cannot fight people who are innocent civilians. You can cross that line accidentally, but you can’t cross it deliberately. If you deliberately target civilians, that’s a war crime.”

Prime Minister Netanyahu stressed: “Terrorists, including the terrorists in Gaza do something entirely different. They target civilians deliberately. They target our cities; they target Ashkelon, as they did today. They target the communities around Gaza. They target Tel Aviv. They target Jerusalem. They deliberately target civilians. That’s a war crime. Now, they commit a second war crime. They not only target civilians, they hide behind civilians in civilian areas, so that they know that we, who are trying to avoid hitting civilians, will not hit them in their places of hiding. So they’re committing a double war crime. They’re targeting civilians and they’re hiding behind civilians, trying to basically receive a safe situation where they can keep on doing this.”

Prime Minister Netanyahu referred to the ruling of the European Union court against Israel and said that while the EU chooses not to join the sanctions on Iran, it imposes economic-diplomatic restrictions on Israel. The Prime Minister thanked the US and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for their strong stand alongside Israel on this issue.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)