‘Killing Gazans cost Israel $2.5 billion’

The Israeli regime says it has spent more than $2.5 billion (1.9 billion euros) for 50 days of bombardment against the besieged Gaza Strip.

On Tuesday, Moshe Yaalon, the Israeli minister of military affairs, put the expenditure of the war on Gaza at “more than nine billion shekels.”

Over 6,000 places were attacked, including “more than 5,000 by the air force, about 900 from land and sea,” he said referring to Tel Aviv’s air, sea and ground attacks.

The military minister said the interception of a Palestinian rocket by Israel’s Iron Dome missile system costs Tel Aviv $100,000.

Yaalon said the amount spent for the Israeli war with high casualties among Palestinian children, women, and the elderly is “worth it.”

The Israeli war ended on August 26 by an Egyptian-brokered truce, which took effect after Cairo negotiations. The deal stipulates the ease of Israel’s seven-year-old blockade as well as the provision of a guarantee that Palestinian demands will be met.

Israeli warplanes and tanks started pounding the blockaded enclave in early July, inflicting heavy losses on the Palestinian land.

Almost 2,140 Palestinians, mostly civilians, including women, children and the elderly, were killed in 50 days of the Israeli onslaught on Gaza. Around 11,000 others were injured.

Tel Aviv says 69 Israelis were killed in the conflict, but Hamas puts the number at much higher.

NT/AS/MHB