TEL AVIV, Israel — Stung by accusations that his country is “committing genocide” against Palestinians in Gaza since the start of the war last year, an Israeli military official this week told the Jamaica Observer that if that was the Jewish State’s intention it would have been done in the space of a minute.

Israel Defence Forces (IDF) spokesman Roni Kaplan, in an obvious reference to his country’s military superiority, is therefore urging the international community to stop the accusations, saying that his people want to live in peace but Hamas has been embedding its fighters inside Gaza’s civilian population.

“We are not targeting civilians. If we would like to make a genocide in the Gaza Strip we could do it in one minute, but the actual thing is that the population in the Gaza Strip multiplied itself six times since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. If we would like to make a genocide in the Gaza Strip, why would we be making 15 million phone calls and dropping leaflets from the air asking the civilians to go out from dangerous places?” Kaplan argued in an interview on Thursday.

“If we would like to make a genocide, why more than 1.1 billion kilograms of food, water, and medicine have been allowed to enter the Gaza Strip from the seventh of October?” he asked.

The war started on October 7, 2023 after Hamas fighters attacked at least four different areas in Israel that had a large concentration of Israelis and tourists, including the popular Nova Festival.

More than 1,200 people were slaughtered in that attack and over 250 taken hostage. Additionally, houses and people were set on fire and there have been reports that hostages have been sexually assaulted by Hamas fighters.

In response, Israel launched a military offensive that has killed at least 44,580 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to data provided by the Hamas-run health ministry which the United Nations (UN) regards as reliable.

That has resulted in UN human rights experts accusing Israel of genocide several times, and South Africa filed a case against Israel at the UN’s top court in December 2023 accusing the Jewish State of “violating the genocide convention by promoting the destruction of Palestinians living in Gaza”.

Last month, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former defence minister, and a top Hamas leader.

The ICC judges said there were “reasonable grounds” to suspect the three men of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Netanyahu described the decision as anti-Semitic, while US President Joe Biden slammed the warrants against the Israelis as “outrageous”.

On Thursday, Kaplan said there was no doubt that there is an “industry of lies that is one of the biggest frauds in the 21st century about how Israel is doing what it is doing”.

“We just want to live in peace. This war is with the terrorist group Hamas and all the agents of Iran. Right now we have a ceasefire with Hezbollah,” Kaplan said in reference to the truce that took effect late last month to end a war that has killed thousands in Lebanon and sparked mass displacements on both sides.

He described Gaza as the most complex urban battlefield in the world, charging that Hamas is embedded behind 2.4 million civilians.

“Hamas is increasingly concentrating forces and weapons in civilian shelters and in buildings until today. Right now in the Gaza Strip we have intensive combat against Hamas forces in the areas such as Jabalia. There were 1, 300 terrorists killed there and more than 700 terrorists surrendered since the last combats there in the last weeks. Since the seventh of October [2023] we have taken out 17,000 terrorists and destroyed 23 of 24 battalions of Hamas in the Gaza Strip,” Kaplan said.

He acknowledged that civilians in Gaza have suffered in the fighting, but at the same time, he said the number of Palestinians killed during targeted strikes is being inflated by Hamas.

“Hamas is giving a number to international media, but it is very difficult to confirm this number. In other conflicts, the number that Hamas gives is bigger than the actual number of deaths,” he insisted.

Meanwhile, Omer Chechek Katz, director of the Brazil, Latin America, and Caribbean Division in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said that the IDF may not be willing to exit Palestine unless an agreement is reached that will ensure peace and security in the region.

“We don’t want to exit without an agreement. We want to see an international force helping to maintain peace and security. There has to be a negotiation between us and whoever can give us back our sisters and brothers, dead or alive. It was unacceptable to take innocent people — babies, children, women, men and elderly — without giving any kind of information about their whereabouts and medical situation. This is a crime against humanity, and our goal is to bring them home. We will do everything in our power to do it,” Katz said.