In recent weeks, three official Israeli representatives have appeared on the popular British talk show Piers Morgan Uncensored: Israeli Ambassador to the UK Tzipi Hotovely, Minister May Golan, and Minister Amichai Chikli. All three failed to stand up to the interviewer’s aggressive questioning. In recent months, Morgan has become highly critical of Israel, particularly over the high number of Palestinian fatalities—especially children—as reported by Hamas’s Ministry of Health in Gaza.
The data published by Hamas is echoed by international media, aid and human rights organizations, the United Nations, and representatives of Western governments, including leaders such as the presidents of France and Germany. The sensitivity of Western media and other bodies to the high number of Palestinian casualties is evident in the intense coverage and constant focus on the issue, especially when it comes to figures related to children in Gaza.
All three Israeli interviewees either tried to respond or avoided Morgan’s very blunt and direct questions regarding the number of children killed. The result was, at best, disheartening, and at worst, a public diplomacy disaster. But this isn’t just about Hotovely, Golan, and Chikli. It seems that since the beginning of the war, most Israeli interviewees—regardless of who they are—have been missing the point and making strategic errors in their approach and response. For the message to be compelling and achieve the desired outcome, it must rest on four main pillars.
Morality and Humanity vs. Exploitation of Civilians
The first pillar: Israel is saving civilian lives in the Gaza Strip. If Israel had not acted the way it has, the death toll would have been much higher, because Hamas leaders—both inside and outside the Strip—repeatedly declare their willingness to sacrifice another hundred thousand civilians for the sake of victory. And they don’t just declare it—they act accordingly. In practice, Hamas operates from within the civilian population and is deeply embedded in it.
This is evident in their systematic takeover of all essential civilian and humanitarian facilities, including hospitals, clinics, schools, mosques, UNRWA facilities, and more; recruitment of youth as young as 14 into their ranks to be used as cannon fodder in terrorist and guerrilla activities; and even massacres of Gazan civilians trying to reach humanitarian shelters and food distribution centers.
Israel, by contrast, takes care to warn Palestinian civilians before conducting military operations in specific areas, urging them to move to safer zones. It does this through a wide array of methods, including Arabic-language IDF spokesperson announcements on every possible platform, phone calls to civilians, the use of the “knock on the roof” procedure, and above all—through surgical, precise, and targeted military operations designed to minimize harm to civilians as much as possible.
Every Structure Is a Potential Threat
The second pillar that must be emphasized is the complexity of the battlefield. The Gaza Strip is the most densely populated and complex urban combat zone in the world, with a vast network of more than 700 kilometers of tunnels beneath its surface. Hamas uses these tunnels for combat, defense, storage of weapons and other equipment, and some serve as command and control centers. This intricate tunnel network stretches across the entire Strip and allows terrorists to move safely through its territory. The number of tunnel entry and exit shafts is estimated to be in the thousands, and they are often hidden inside residential buildings, schools, hospitals, clinics, UNRWA facilities, mosques, and even cemeteries.
After nearly two years of warfare and the destruction of hundreds of kilometers of tunnels and shafts, the IDF concluded that approximately 80% of all buildings in Gaza are connected in one way or another to the tunnel system—hence the high number of demolished structures.
For example, Shifa Hospital supplied water, energy, and communications to Hamas’s central command center in Gaza, which was dug directly beneath it and allowed terrorists to access the facility. The tunnel in which Mohammad Sinwar and a group of senior Hamas officials were eliminated was dug between the emergency room and the neonatal intensive care unit of the European Hospital in Khan Younis. Several hospital directors in the Gaza Strip were senior Hamas operatives, and UNRWA was entirely controlled by the organization, with some of its employees even taking part in the murderous October 7 attack—and the list goes on.
Falsified Data and Blurred Definitions
The third pillar of Israeli public diplomacy must focus on the fact that the numbers reported by Hamas’s Ministry of Health are fabricated, inflated, and false. Beyond the fact that no distinction is made between terrorists and civilians, and beyond the inclusion of thousands who died of natural causes, the reports do not differentiate between those killed and injured by the IDF and those harmed by Hamas or other Palestinian militias, those murdered or executed by Hamas for various reasons, or those killed due to failed rocket launches aimed at Israel that fell within Gaza itself—as occurred at Al-Ahli Hospital in southern Gaza City on October 17, 2023 (IDF data indicates that 12% of rocket launches fall short).
The fourth and final pillar concerns Israel’s need to insist on the accuracy of definitions in global media discourse. When interviewers like Morgan confront Israeli guests with accusations about the high number of children among the casualties, the immediate response should be a counter-question: What is your definition of a child? The UN and a commonly accepted definition is up to age 18. If that is the case, let’s examine how many of those “children” aged 14–18 were Hamas combatants. The numbers are undoubtedly significant.
Furthermore, such claims should be countered with a complete and factual refutation of the data presented by Hamas. Numerous articles have been written on this subject, including by statistical experts, who have demonstrated that the numbers published by the terrorist organization’s health ministry are entirely unfounded. Civilian casualties should be distributed in proportion to the gender and age breakdown of the population, or as closely as possible.
For example, if children under 18 comprise about 30% of the population, they should make up roughly 30% of civilian casualties—approximately half of the total casualties. However, Hamas’s Ministry of Health reports all casualties without distinguishing between terrorists and civilians. If we accept their claimed figure of around 56,000 casualties—a fundamentally false and inflated number, with many documented reasons to dispute it, including the fact that about 3,000 natural deaths are included—then the number of civilian casualties, based on Hamas’s exaggerated data, would be around 28,000. Thirty percent of that is 8,400.
That number is indeed significant, and it should not be denied—but it must be placed in a broader and causal context, emphasizing the vast gap between it and the figures reported by Hamas.
Pointing to the True Culprit Behind the Tragedy
The central idea of effective public diplomacy—especially in encounters with interviewers like Piers Morgan—is to decisively dismantle the narrative they present and expose the real picture. It must be stressed that Israel is not only saving civilian lives in the Gaza Strip, but that the IDF, despite all the complexities and difficulties, and the protracted nature of the war, has managed to set an international gold standard—according to the world’s foremost urban warfare experts, such as John Spencer (USA) and Richard Kemp (UK).
The ratio between terrorists killed and civilians killed stands at 1:1.5–2; in other words, for every terrorist killed, between 1.5 and 2 civilians are killed. This is the lowest ratio of collateral damage in the world for any comparable context.
It is essential to state in every interview that war—especially one as prolonged as the current war in Gaza—is by its nature violent and deadly. Mistakes and errors will inevitably occur, and there are even severe cases of breaches of military orders, including potential war crimes. However, the IDF and its military justice system rigorously investigate every exceptional incident and do not hesitate to prosecute and severely punish those who deviate from orders, break the law, or violate the rules of war.
Therefore, it must be clearly emphasized that the responsibility for civilian deaths in Gaza, including those of children, lies with Hamas. This terrorist organization launched a barbaric and murderous assault, in coordination with and with assistance from Iran, as part of a broader plan to destroy Israel. This organization, it must be repeated, deliberately sacrifices its civilian population on the altar of its messianic and murderous “resistance” ethos. Hamas knows that doing so triggers all the emotional reflexes of the international media, aid and human rights organizations, the UN, and political leaders and governments, and that this emotional reaction can generate pressure on Israel to halt the war before achieving its objectives—leaving Hamas in power as a functional sovereign—and potentially initiate processes of delegitimization and sanctions against Israel.
Public diplomacy is not about apologizing. It must attack, dismantle, and refute the data and arguments of interviewers and critics, and immediately redirect the attack toward Hamas, while persistently repeating the mantra that Israel, through its actions, is saving many Palestinian civilians from death that Hamas seeks to impose on them as sacrificial victims for a victory that will never come.
At every opportunity, Israeli interviewees must emphasize that the free world owes us a debt of gratitude for saving it from the clutches of Iran and jihadist Islam, and for restoring its ability to defend itself against these threats. We are not the ones who should be apologizing; instead, the leaders and agencies of the free world should be apologizing for their weak and conciliatory conduct toward those seeking to annihilate them—right after us—and for their failure to acknowledge the fact that Israel has restored their right to defend themselves against their enemies.
