When Matthias Schmale, director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in the Gaza Strip, told Channel 12 on Sunday that Israeli airstrikes during the recent conflagration were “precise” and “sophisticated,” he was simply stating the truth as he saw it.
In the interview with journalist Arad Nir, Schmale was asked about the IDF’s assertion that its military strikes against terrorist targets had been very precise. He responded, “I’m not a military expert, but I would not dispute that. I also have the impression that there is a huge sophistication in the way the Israeli military struck over the last 11 days, so that’s not my issue. I’ve had many colleagues describe to me that they feel that, in comparison with the 2014 war, this time the strikes felt much more vicious in terms of their impact. So yes, they didn’t hit – with some exceptions – civilian targets, but the viciousness, ferocity of the strikes was heavily felt.”
He noted that more than 60 children were killed in Gaza, including 19 who attended an UNRWA school.
“I think the precision was there, but there was unacceptable and unbearable loss of life on the civilian side,” Schmale stated.
It did not take long for Gazans to voice outrage over Schmale’s remarks, accusing him of exonerating Israel and calling for his reprimand and dismissal. In a joint statement, several Palestinian rights groups accused Schmale of “indirectly praising the precision and sophistication of the Israeli Army, when Israel is in fact constantly committing war crimes and crimes against humanity against the Palestinian people.”
Hamas tweeted that it was shocked by the statements, accusing the UNRWA official of pretending to be a “military analyst for the occupation army.”
Hamas said in a statement that the comments were “a complete distortion in favor of the Zionists, including an attempt to exonerate the occupation of the murder of 254 Palestinians, more than 40% of them children, women and the elderly.”
Former IDF spokesman Peter Lerner, on the other hand, thanked Schmale for his “candid interview” and “for sharing your opinion that Israeli strikes were indeed precise, conducted with a huge sophistication.”
In response to Lerner’s tweet, Schmale stressed that “all loss of civilian life (on both sides) is not ‘tragic’ but unacceptable!”
Then, on Tuesday, following the Palestinian outrage, Schmale issued an apology.
“Recent remarks I made on Israeli TV have offended & hurt those who had family members & friends killed & injured during the war that has just ended,” he tweeted. “There is no justification whatsoever for killing civilians. Any civilian killed is one too many. It is simply unbearable that so many innocent people have paid with their lives.”
For the record, the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza, which does not differentiate between terrorists and civilians, said at least 243 Palestinians were killed, including 66 minors, in the Israeli strikes. The IDF stated, however, that it had killed some 200 terrorist operatives and that some of the civilian fatalities were caused by Hamas rockets falling short and landing in the Strip.
Opponents of Israel’s actions during Operation Guardian of the Walls have claimed that Israel intentionally targeted civilians during the operation, but Israeli officials have stressed repeatedly that the IDF did all it could to avoid civilian casualties, including warning civilians ahead of the airstrikes.
Israeli military officials acknowledged that there were civilian casualties as a result of the air campaign’s collateral damage. In one of the worst incidents, the IDF said a missile strike on an underground bunker in the Shati refugee camp inadvertently caused the collapse of two homes, killing 10 people, including eight children.
The IDF said that such casualties were the tragic result of Hamas’s strategy of intentionally operating within densely populated areas and using residents as civilian shields. And here is the crux of the matter: The IDF seeks to be precise and to only target terrorists and military installations. Hamas, on the other hand, fires rockets indiscriminately at Israel, seeking to kill as many Israelis as possible.
This whole affair is evidence of the insanity of Hamas’s stranglehold over the people in Gaza, and over UNRWA. It’s unfortunate that Schmale, after being terrorized on social media, felt the need to backtrack on candid remarks that spoke the truth.