IDF does not ‘deliberately target hospitals’, says former Israeli defence minister Benny Gantz

A former Israeli defence minister has told Sky News it is “absolutely not true” that the country’s military deliberately targets hospitals.

In an interview with Yalda Hakim, Benny Gantz, who quit Benjamin Netanyahu’s war cabinet last year, also said he has “nothing against” the people of Iran or Gaza.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has said that at least 94% of all hospitals in the Gaza Strip have been damaged or destroyed.

A total of 917 healthcare workers in medical facilities have been killed, the WHO said last month.

Asked about the figures and if the Israeli military deliberately targets healthcare buildings, Mr Gantz replied: “This is absolutely not true.”

He said that when the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) targeted al Shifa hospital in Gaza earlier in the war, it “did everything in our capacity to ensure nobody was getting hurt”.

Mr Gantz continued: “Those hospitals are a coverage, they are being used by Hamas to put all their infrastructure under those hospitals, underneath those schools.

“We alert them and evacuate it, then we do what we have to do. We do not deliberately go and hit a hospital just because it’s a hospital. There’s no way we’re doing it.”