Q: How does Israel justify the deaths of so many Palestinians?
A: The number of Palestinian casualties is a direct function of the number of Palestinians seeking to damage or breach the fence or directly threaten Israel's soldiers and citizens.
What we're seeing are not peaceful demonstrations, but rather a deliberate effort to confront Israel's soldiers and to storm into Israel under the cover of large gathering of civilians. To give you an example: on April 11 a bomb was detonated against an IDF vehicle using an IED laid there during the riots the previous week.
The civilian crowds may get the media attention, but the real story is the hostile activity Hamas is conducting under their cover.
Israel of course has every right to defend its border. Anyone engaged in deliberate and violent action against us does so at their own risk.
And if I may add, it is not Israel which justifies the deaths of these terrorists, it is Hamas which sings the praises of martyrdom and encourages others – both rhetorically and financially – to also engage in violence against Israel.
Hamas is offering unemployed Gazans money to go and get themselves hurt at the fence! Many news outlets may choose not to cover that aspect of this story, but it doesn’t make it any less true.
For Hamas, the more death, the better. That is the exact opposite of the calculus that Israel applies.
Q: Why is the IDF using live ammunition to quell peaceful civilian demonstrations?
A: Hamas has made huge efforts to present these riots as peaceful demonstrations, but nothing could be further from the truth.
Firstly, while there are non-violent elements that the cameras easily pick up, these are serving as cover for deliberate efforts to confront Israel's soldiers, damage the fence protecting Israel's civilians from Hamas terror attacks and physically to storm into Israel.
Israel has every right to protect itself and its civilians – some of whom live only 100 metres from the fence - in accordance with international law.
Secondly - and this is a broader point that goes to the very heart of this whole weeks-long campaign - if these so-called demonstrations were truly peaceful civilian demonstrations against an oppressive ruler, they would be directed AGAINST Hamas, not BY Hamas.
It is Hamas which rules Gaza, not Israel. It is Hamas which is responsible for the economic hardships currently faced by Gaza's population, not Israel. The fact that Hamas' fingerprints are all over the events themselves says it all:
These events are not about economic hardship and they’re certainly not about living in peace with Israel; they're about perpetuating the conflict.
Q: Why are there so many Palestinian casualties when there aren’t any on the Israeli side?
A: Palestinians are deliberately attacking our defenses and seeking to harm our citizens and we're determined to prevent that harm.
We make no apologies for being good at protecting our borders and our people.
But let me make it absolutely clear: not a single Palestinian would have died near the fence with Israel in the last few weeks had Hamas not organized and engineered these clashes.
It is Hamas, not Israel, that is initiating the current clashes; it is Hamas, not Israel, which is seeking to enter the other's territory; 
Just to give you a taste of the rhetoric:
It is Hamas, not Israel, who holds the key to the end of the confrontation and violence.
Q: Why are so many of the casualties civilians?
Sadly some of the casualties of these deliberate riots directed against Israel may have been civilians, but we know for sure – and Hamas is not denying this at all – that at least 15 of those killed, and most likely more, were full-fledged members of Hamas' terrorist operatives.
This simple fact puts the lie to the notion that Hamas is trying to spread, and many in the media are repeating, that this is some kind of innocent civilian protest.
No doubt there have been many civilians at the various points along the fence that Hamas has chosen to focus its efforts on. But these civilians are being used by Hamas as cover for its deliberate efforts to damage the fence and other IDF infrastructure, to breach the fence and to storm into Israel and harm its citizens.
Not a single Palestinian would have died near the fence with Israel in the last few weeks had Hamas not organized and engineered these clashes.
It is Hamas, not Israel, that is initiating the current clashes; it is Hamas, not Israel, which is seeking to enter the other's territory; and it is Hamas, not Israel, who holds the key to the end of the confrontation and violence.
Q: Does Israel consider all those on the Palestinian side criminals, or terrorists?
Of course not. Many of the people mobilized by Hamas to serve as civilian cover for Hamas's violence are no doubt ordinary Gazans who only wish for a good life like you or I. But these people are being manipulated and exploited by Hamas for its own hostile ends.
Ask yourself; If Hamas has been ruling Gaza for 12 years, and there are currently electricity shortages there, in whose interest is it to get the people of Gaza to channel their frustration towards Israel rather than towards Hamas itself?
Throughout its 12 years of rule Hamas has consistently chosen to spend money on fighting Israel rather than on building Gaza. Instead of building hospitals and homes for its own people it builds tunnels and rockets with which to attack Israel. This is the sad truth that forms the backdrop to Hamas' current campaign of confrontation, a campaign which Hamas has spent 15 million dollars on.
The people of Gaza are pawns in Hamas' hands.
Instead of creating opportunities to advance its people, Hamas uses its people to create opportunities to harm Israel.
Q: How does Israel expect anyone to believe that it's response is proportionate?
A: What we expect is that outside observers look at all the evidence and the context, rather than jumping to simplistic and misguided conclusions.
To think that one side should allow its own people to be hurt in order to present a picture of parity is obscene.
Proportionality is defined by the nature and level of the threat, which in turn is defined by the motives and objectives of the attacker.
In this case, the motives and objectives of Hamas are clear: Hamas is filled with hatred for Israel and the Jewish people and its openly declared objective is to destroy the state of Israel.
To translate that into concrete terms: if, Hamas terrorists were to succeed in breaching the Gaza fence, the result would be dead Israelis. There are Israeli communities less than 100 metres from the fence. Families, children. Ordinary people.
Against that threat, Israel not only has the right to use lethal force to defend itself, it has the moral obligation to do so.
Q: Why is Israel enforcing a blockade on Gaza and its population?
A: Israel is NOT enforcing a blockade on the Gaza Strip. Every day hundreds of tons of goods – food, medicines, fuel, building materials, school supplies, furniture, electronic appliances – pass into the Gaza Strip from Israel, while produce and goods produced in Gaza are exported via the Kerem Shalom crossing and sold in Palestinian markets and around the world.
Just to give you an illustration of the volume, in 2017 close to 150,000 truckloads of goods entered Gaza from Israel. That's hundreds of truckloads a day, every day.
Israel DOES act to prevent the entry of arms, military equipment, and dual-use materials that would be used for making rockets and bombs, building smuggling tunnels and attacking Israel.
Hamas and other terrorist organizations in Gaza have on many occasions*** exploited land crossings and the sea off Gaza to smuggle in such weapons and materials. Israel's actions to prevent this smuggling are in complete accordance with international law.
[***See below links to cases of Hamas exploitation of land and sea crossings to smuggle weapons.]
Q: Why is Israel deliberately targeting journalists?
Israel IS NOT and DOES NOT target journalists. Period.
The actions of the IDF in protecting Israel's borders and citizens are carried out in full accordance with international law, which enshrines Israel's right to self-defence.
If and when a journalist is hurt by IDF fire, Israel investigates, and that is the case with the incident that happened at the seam-line on Friday 6 April. And it turns out that Yasser Murtaja, the "journalist" in question, was a Hamas operative.
This would not be the first time that Hamas has abused international symbols of neutrality such as ambulances and press credentials, to further its terrorist objectives.
The broader context also bears repeating here:
Hamas, a terror organization whose objective is the eradication of the state of Israel, is orchestrating this series of rallies and riots, the attempts to storm the fence and overrun Israel with masses of people, the Molotov cocktails, the IEDs, the burning tires, all of it.
If these rallies were to be held inside Hamas-controlled Gaza instead of at the fence – there would be no clash with Israeli forces. Israel has no presence inside Gaza. Gaza is controlled by Hamas, not anyone else. Responsibility for what happens there lies with Hamas.
Q: Why Does Israel oppose outside investigations of its army's behavior?
Quite aside from the fact that we see no reason why Israel should be singled out for outside scrutiny when many other countries find themselves also deploying military force to protect themselves, Israel has an excellent record of investigating its own military actions and drawing the necessary conclusions to redress any exceptions to the proper implementation of its legitimate right to self-defense.
Israel itself is also a vibrant democracy and the army's activity is a constant source of healthy public and political debate which itself contributes to the necessary oversight.
I would also add that Israel quite rightly has serious doubts as to the objectivity and fairness of any third-party inquiry into its behavior, particularly given the gross anti-Israel bias of many UN agencies and other international actors – including many in the media - who so readily set themselves up as judge and jury over Israel's defensive actions.