‘That’s Not Hamas’ Leadership’: Jake Tapper Asks Former Israeli Official About Palestinian Children Killed By Airstrikes

CNN’s Jake Tapper asked a former Israeli ambassador about Palestinian children killed in Israel’s air strikes on Gaza as the country wages war on Hamas.

Earlier this month, Hamas launched a series of coordinated terrorist attacks, killing more than 1,300 Israelis. In response, the Israeli military has bombed Gaza, which is controlled by Hamas. It is anticipated that Israel will conduct a large-scale invasion of the territory.

Appearing on Monday’s edition of The Lead, former Israel ambassador to the U.K. Mark Regev was asked by Tapper about Israel’s response.

“So, certainly taking out Hamas’ leadership, I understand the point of that,” he said. “But the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza says 2,800 Palestinians have been killed and somewhere between a quarter and a third of them are children. That’s not Hamas’ leadership.”

Regev responded by saying those numbers may be unreliable.

“Can I please offer a word of caution?” he replied. “Now, I know that there is real suffering in Gaza. There’s a war going on and innocent people are getting caught up in a very difficult situation. I don’t minimize that. But you have to take with a grain of salt any information that comes out of the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health in Gaza. That has to be said. Hamas is not a democracy. There’s not an independent health bureaucracy that is trying to do its best.”

Regev went on to claim that Palestinian government agencies are as reliable as totalitarian regimes, and said health officials in Gaza work “under the gun of Hamas”:

“It’s like speaking to a doctor in North Korea or a doctor in the former Soviet Union,” he continued. “They don’t have independent opinions. They have to follow the party line and if not, they face violent consequences. So those numbers, they might be true, they might not be true. Hamas, of course, has an interest in exaggerating civilian casualties.”

Watch above via CNN.