'It could have hit a child in Gaza': Israeli writer criticizes president's signing on shell

JERUSALEM

An Israeli writer criticized on Wednesday President Isaac Herzog for signing an artillery shell before it was fired towards the Gaza Strip last week, saying that it could have hit a child there.

"This week a picture made the rounds of social media showing President Isaac Herzog writing the phrase 'I rely on you' on a shell to be dropped on Gaza," Netta Ahituv wrote in Israeli daily Haaretz.

"Had Israel officially declared the goal of the present war to be "revenge" in the most superficial and primitive sense of the term – to do harm to all those who represent Hamas in our eyes; i.e., all Gazan, including little children – maybe there would be a place for a picture in which the president is signing a shell that is about to wreak destruction and kill people who aren't necessarily part of Hamas," she added.

"As long as this is not Israel's declared goal, there is no good reason to publicize a picture showing our president, who is supposed to represent us as a distinguished, statesmanlike figure," the writer said, slamming Herzog's action.

"What statesmanship is there in the signing of a lethal munition, which in the eyes of the world represents Israel's greatest sin in this war – sowing devastation in Gaza and killing innocents," she questioned.

"Did it not occur to Herzog that this shell was also liable to maim and kill young children, whose only sin was to be born in Gaza – the worst place in the world to grow up at the moment?" she asked.

Since the outbreak of the war in October, the Israeli president has defended the intensive bombardment of the Gaza Strip despite the large numbers of children, women, and elderly who have been killed as a result.

Israel has launched air and ground attacks on the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by Palestinian resistance group Hamas on Oct. 7.

At least 22,313 Palestinians have since been killed and 57,296 others injured, mostly children and women, according to Gaza's health authorities, while nearly 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the Hamas attack.

The Israeli onslaught has left Gaza in ruins, with 60% of the enclave's infrastructure damaged or destroyed, and nearly 2 million residents displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicines.

*Writing by Mohammad Sio