A US senator said Wednesday that the civilian death toll in Gaza has been “too high”.
"I think that the civilian death toll has been too high, and a more surgical approach would be important and vital," Chris Murphy, a Democratic member of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told AFP in an interview.
He added that it is "vital" for Israel to carry out a more targeted offensive in the Gaza Strip to limit civilian casualties.
"I am concerned that if Israel's strategy and end goal is to defeat Hamas, then this pace of civilian casualties, which certainly comes with a moral cost, also comes with a strategic cost."
The Israeli strikes have killed 10,569 people, also mostly civilians, including 4,324 children, the Hamas-run Palestinian territory's health ministry has said.
Along with 20 of his Senate peers, Murphy sent a letter Wednesday to US President Joe Biden, urging that Israel "abide by the laws of war," and to "learn from the mistakes the United States made in our fight against terrorism" two decades ago.
"What we've learned is that when you are too permissive about civilian deaths, you end up providing bulletin board material to terrorist recruiters and end up killing lots of terrorists, but you end up creating lots of terrorists as well," Murphy said.
He added that Israel "should be directing the strikes perhaps more so with ground forces than with airstrikes."
But the senator, who hails from the small northeastern state of Connecticut, next to New York, opposes a ceasefire, as does Biden. "A ceasefire would allow for Hamas to regroup and start readying their next attack on Israeli civilians."
