Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Yechiel Leiter, said in a televised interview on Thursday that his son Moshe, who died fighting Hamas in 2023, would be alive today if Israel really did what it is accused of doing in Gaza.
“My own son was killed because we do not kill innocent civilians. He went in on foot into Gaza and led the troops at the beginning of the war, and was killed when he went into a Hamas booby trap,” Leiter told Jake Tapper on CNN.
Maj. (res.) Moshe Yedidyah Leiter, 39, was killed in action in the northern Gaza Strip on Nov. 10, 2023. A reservist, he served as a paramedic and was due to start a training placement at a hospital as part of his studies to become a doctor. He and his wife had six children, the youngest of whom was about three months old when his father died.
Near the end of the interview, Tapper asked the ambassador his son’s name. Tapper then repeated it and said: “May his memory be a blessing.” Leiter replied: “Thank you, I appreciate that.”
Leiter used the example to discredit the claims that Israel was perpetrating genocide in Gaza and killing civilians indiscriminately.
“A country that’s capable of taking out the control of all of Iranian airspace in 72 hours, allowing for the B2s of the United States to come in and obliterate the nuclear weapons operations in Iran, is not capable of ending this war sooner? Of course we are, but it’s because we’re taking precautions that no other country has ever taken,” Leiter said.
No other country, he also said, “has had to face a situation of 450 miles of terror tunnels under an area that’s 24 miles long. We’re dealing with a ghoulish, fiendish organization that’s not only hiding behind civilians, but is using civilians as cannon fodder. They enjoy this. This is a death cult. They say this.”
In the interview, Leiter reiterated Israel’s insistence, backed by U.S. President Donald Trump, that the war end with Hamas dismantled.
“This war end when Hamas ends. We need to see this war end where Gaza is disarmed, Gaza is demilitarized and all of our hostages are out. None of this, as the president has said repeatedly, none of this drip-drab kind of thing, a few hostages now, a few hostages later. If we are not careful, what’s going to happen is we’re going to get a few hostages out now and we’re never going to see the rest of the hostages again.”
Leiter stressed that, alongside protests by Israelis demanding Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu end the war in Gaza, the government is under pressure by others demanding Hamas’s total defeat.
“There are families of soldiers who are saying to the prime minister, you have to end this war with a defeat of Hamas because otherwise we’re going back to Oct. 6,” Leiter said.
