Washington, Jun. 14, (dpa/GNA) – US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin called on Israel to better protect the civilian population in the Gaza Strip as it seeks to eliminate Palestinian Islamists Hamas in a war that began in October.

“The number of casualties has been far too high,” said Austin on Friday on the fringes of a meeting of NATO defence ministers in Brussels, commenting on Israel’s military operation in the strip.

“I have engaged my counterpart on a number of occasions and and encourage them to be more precise, and also make sure that we’re protecting the civilians in the battlespace,” Austin said.

Israel must do everything possible to minimize the number of civilian casualties in the combat zone, he said.

Achieving military objectives and protecting the civilian population in a combat zone are not mutually exclusive, said Austin, of Israel’s goals in Gaza, amid growing criticism worldwide of the operation given the soaring number of casualties there.

He emphasised that the Islamist Hamas mingles with the civilian population and uses them as human shields, describing this as “despicable tactics.”

However, the US official said, protecting the civilian population is a “strategic imperative.”

The war in Gaza was unleashed by the unprecedented attack on Israel by the Palestinian Islamist Hamas on October 7, killing around 1,200 people and taking another 250 as hostages. Around 120 are still in the hands of Hamas, but it is feared that many are already dead.

Israel responded to the attack with a massive military offensive on Gaza, in which at least 37,232 people have been killed and many more thousands injured, according to the Hamas authorities.

Around 85% of the population in Gaza, 1.9 million people, has been forcibly displaced in the wake of the Israeli attacks, according to UN figures.GNA