Israeli Spokesman Admits ‘Optics Are Bad’ in Gaza Airstrikes on Civilians, But Says ‘We Are Not Fighting For Our Image’

Israeli government spokesman Eylon Levy acknowledged on Monday that while “the optics” surrounding Israel’s airstrikes on Gaza are “bad,” he argued, “We are not fighting for our image; we are fighting for our survival.”

During an interview with Levy, NewsNation host Chris Cuomo said:

There is a case to be made that Israel has a right to self-defense, and that right to self-defense was obviously triggered by October 7th. I don’t know by what standard it wouldn’t have been. But now it becomes about duration and degree, and bombing when you know that the optics are going to be that a hospital is getting hit, and you’ll now have to make the case about what is underneath the hospital or what is being done in that hospital that no longer makes it a hospital in the eyes of international law, is a very hard case that puts Israel on the defensive and looks to be making the situation worse.

After Cuomo asked Levy, “How do you balance the optics and the exigencies in terms of getting back hostages, keeping Israel safe, and not creating undue suffering among non-Hamas Palestinians?” he replied:

You’re right, the optics are bad, but we are not fighting for our image, we are fighting for survival. The optics of the October 7th massacre are even worse. 1,200 people who were brutally executed, butchered, beheaded, burned. Many of them tortured and mutilated before they were killed, their bodies mutilated after they were killed. That is the enemy we are fighting against, the genocidal terror group that is promising to murder every man, woman, and child in the country, and is telling us that if we do not stop, it will do another October 7th and another October 7th until it has murdered all of us and destroyed the state of Israel. That is what we are fighting against, and our right to self-defense, our duty of self-defense is to eliminate the terrorist organization that did that.

According to the Gaza Health Ministry, more than 11,100 — or roughly one in 200 — Palestinians have been killed since October 7 as a result of Israel’s airstrikes and war on Hamas.

At least 4,609 victims are reported to have been children, while at least 42 journalists have also reportedly been killed in the conflict.

Watch above via NewsNation.