Israel fends off censure over Gaza civilian deaths

By Dan Williams

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Palestinian civilian deaths in the Gaza Strip were a "product of circumstance," Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said on Monday.

"We had to carry out this operation. I am at peace with the fact that we did it," Livni, a centrist who is running for prime minister in a February 10 election, told Israel Radio.

Israel's Gaza offensive, launched on December 27 to counter Palestinian rocket attacks and suspended on Sunday, killed more than 1,300 Palestinians. Gazan rights groups said 700 civilians died, many of them children.

Asked about the civilian death toll, Livni said, "it was a product of circumstance." She blamed the ruling Islamist Hamas in Gaza for fighting from within population centers.

"We seek out the terrorists, and it can happen that civilians are sometimes hurt in the fight against terror."

She added: "We should not take this lightly. These matters will present us with a complicated task ... The consequences, in the context of civilians casualties, are something we have to deal with, among ourselves and in facing the world."

In Israel, which lost 10 soldiers in combat and three civilians to rockets, the offensive was popular given anger at Islamist Hamas and frequent cross-border salvoes from the Gaza Strip, which Israeli forces and settlers quit in 2005.

But Israelis are also mindful of criticism from Western powers which worry that the suffering in impoverished Gaza could sap support for Hamas's secular rival, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and his peace talks with the Jewish state.