Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who previously served as a Judge Advocate General (JAG) officer for the U.S. Navy SEALs, said during an int...
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who previously served as a Judge Advocate General (JAG) officer for the U.S. Navy SEALs, said during an interview over the weekend that Israel has taken the necessary steps to protect civilians inside of Gaza ahead of the country’s ground offensive against Hamas.
DeSantis made the remarks during a Sunday interview with Margaret Brennan on CBS News’ “Face The Nation” when asked what he would advise Israel to do in terms of “distinguishing between legitimate targets and civilians.”
“Israel has a right to defend itself to the hilt,” he said. “And that means the complete elimination of Hamas, the eradication of their terrorist infrastructure. Israel has put out warnings to civilians about where Israel’s going to conduct operations and has told civilians there to leave the area.”
“Hamas is telling those civilians to stay in the area,” he continued. “So they’re using the civilians as human shields. So of course, when you’re in war, you want to avoid that, but if there are civilian casualties, that’s the fault of Hamas. That’s not going to be the fault of Israel.”
DeSantis pushed back on claims from Hamas apologists that Israel needed to continue providing water to the area as that would go toward benefiting Hamas. Hamas has routinely dug up water pipes and converted them into rockets that are then used in terrorist attacks.
Brennan suggested that DeSantis supported “collective punishment” against those living in Gaza for Hamas’ actions.
“It’s not collective punishment. Hamas is the one that is creating this predicament,” he said. “Hamas is the one who always uses civilian targets to conduct operations. And we dealt with this some in Iraq where Al Qaeda in Iraq would commandeer mosques.”
“So under normal circumstances, of course, you don’t target a religious institution,” he continued. “But if you have terrorist groups that are converting that into a base of operations, then you absolutely treat that as military targets. But that’s because Hamas is making those decisions to convert that infrastructure into the use for terrorist purposes.”
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