Debate: As Palestinian Deaths Top 100, Who’s to Blame for Escalating Violence?

Half of the reported 101 Palestinians killed by an Israeli offensive over the last week are estimated to be women and children. No deaths have been reported in Israel. Palestinian human rights attorney Noura Erakat and Joshua Hantman, senior adviser to Israel’s ambassador to the United States, debate the question of what should be done.

“Democracy Now!” reports Friday:

The death toll in the Gaza Strip continues to rise in the fourth day of Israel’s aerial offensive. Medical officials in Gaza estimate that at least 22 people were killed Thursday, bringing the number of Palestinian fatalities to 101, about half of them reportedly women and children. No deaths have been reported on the Israeli side. The Israeli military says it has dropped hundreds of tonnes of bombs on 1,000 targets throughout Gaza, more than during its eight-day assault in late 2012. The intensification of Israeli airstrikes has been met with a barrage of rockets fired from Gaza into Israel. We host a debate between Palestinian human rights attorney Noura Erakat and Joshua Hantman, senior adviser to Israel’s ambassador to the United States. “Israel is currently under attack,” Hantman says. “Since 2005, over 8,000 rockets, missiles and mortars have been indiscriminately fired at our civilians.” But Erakat says Israel’s bombardment of Gaza “amounts to a massacre.” “Israel has precise weaponry and is targeting homes,” she says. “This is a disproportionate attack, by what we consider the only democracy in the Middle East, by the U.S.’s most unique ally, to whom we provide $3.1 billion a year.”

‘Democracy Now!’:

— Adapted from “Democracy Now!” by Alexander Reed Kelly.