On Friday’s “NBC News Daily,” NBC Correspondent Ellison Barber said that even though Israel has warned Palestinians to evacuate Gaza — a warning that Hamas has urged civilians to ignore — Hamas isn’t completely responsible for their own civilians, because “everyone has an obligation in war to try and limit the toll and the death and the damage to civilians, everyone.”
Barber stated, “There have been leaflets, according to our producer, inside of Gaza, that were dropped by IDF, warning Palestinians to evacuate and/or seek shelter, but the truth is, they have nowhere to go. There is not a humanitarian corridor, all of the border crossings are closed. Israel says the border crossing to the north, that that was targeted by Hamas over the weekend. But there are other border crossings, none of those are open. There’s one that goes into Egypt, that is not open. You have hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped inside Gaza right now as this war escalates.”
After the discussion turned to the possibility of a safe zone or an evacuation corridor, Barber stated that she asked an IDF spokesperson about that, and “I didn’t get a direct answer, but sometimes a non-answer is an answer in itself. What he told me was that Hamas had targeted the crossing to the north, the Erez border crossing over the weekend on Saturday, and that they had killed a number of people at that crossing and taken other people from that crossing hostage, that that one is not open. He said that that’s not open, and that is the making of Hamas’ own doing, if you will, that they have done this. He said, Hamas has waged a war on civilians, and, in his view, he said, that includes on Palestinians. When I asked if there were any sort of talks or if Israel would be open to saying, okay, let’s create a safe corridor and talk with Egypt and create some sort of green zone so people can get out in that direction, I asked both if they would work and talk with Egypt, and also if they would be open to another sort of crossing into Israeli territory, the answer, again, was that they said Hamas did this, and that Hamas is responsible for their own citizens, which, again, based on the Geneva Conventions, that is not necessarily true, everyone has an obligation in war to try and limit the toll and the death and the damage to civilians, everyone.”
During the segment, co-host Vicky Nguyen noted that Hamas has told civilians in Gaza to not evacuate.
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.