Israeli Ambassador to US Addresses Palestinian Civilian Deaths: ‘You Don’t Know How Many Are Terrorists’

Israeli Ambassador to the US Michael Herzog called civilian deaths in the Israel-Hamas war a "tragedy," but questioned how many in the reported death toll numbers are actually civilians.

"Every loss of human life, Israeli or Palestinian, is a tragedy. We are not after innocent civilians. We are after the terrorists who have been hiding behind civilians," Herzog told Martha Raddatz on ABC News' "This Week" on Sunday.

The Palestinian death toll is over 12,300, with two-thirds of them women and children, the Associated Press has reported.

Herzog warned that people should be cautious about any numbers provided by Hamas, which launched the Oct. 7 attack on Israel that led to more than 1,200 deaths. He also suggested terrorists may be included in the death toll numbers coming out of Gaza.

"I would be very careful about Hamas numbers; all the numbers you hear coming out of Gaza ... nobody really knows," Herzog said.

The ambassador conceded however, there is "no denying" civilians are being killed.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said earlier this month that Gaza was becoming a "graveyard" for Palestinian children. Some two-thirds of those killed in Gaza were women and children, the Associated Press has reported.

"We must act now to find a way out of this brutal, awful, agonizing dead end of destruction," said Guterres.

During the same Sunday conversation, Herzog insisted that Israel has no intention of taking Gaza territory in response to a Washington Post op-ed by President Joe Biden in which he said he would not support a "reoccupation" of Gaza.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu previously declared Israel will take control of Gaza for some time after the war. He appeared to later clarify that position, saying he was addressing "security" issues, not governance.

"We do not wish to take territory from Gaza. That's not the intention," Herzog told Raddatz. "Our intention is to dismantle the Hamas terror machine, the war machine."