MK Haim Yellin (Yesh Atid), former head of the Eshkol Regional Council, penned a strongly-worded letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon on Friday, after the altter accused the IDF of making Gazan children “suffer” last summer during Operation Protective Edge.

Yellin noted that he has lived in the Gaza Belt area for 39 years, and that Israelis are only guilty of trying to protect themselves. 

“We’re not raising our children kill people, but to educate them to protect the borders of the State of Israel, the nation and its people – regardless of religion, race, sex and nationality,” Yellin said. 

“Terrorists, on the other hand, choose to fire missiles from population centers, schools, clinics and UN facilities,” Yellin said, going on to note the steps the IDF took to save human lives. 

He also noted the losses to the Gaza Belt area residents during the war. 

“During the last war we paid dearly and we lost Daniel Tregerman – a 4-year-old boy – and friends Ze’evik Etzion and Shahar Melamed,” he said. “We lost them just because of one reason: the IDF did not want to shell the areas where rockets were fired because they were full of children.”

“The Israel Defense Forces is the most moral army anywhere,” he added. “I fought in this army, and my friends were killed for not killing innocent people.”

MK Yellin called on the UN Secretary-General to investigate terrorism and not a state that protects its citizens.

“Instead of coming out to criticize the State on how it protects its citizens, investigate how terror groups attack and cause their people to suffer, by the use of children as human shields out of cowardice and contempt for human life.”