"Osama Hamadan, senior spokesperson of Hamas, has told Al Jazeera that they are not attacking civilians.

“You have to differentiate between settlers and civilians; settlers attacked Palestinians,” Hamdan said.

“We are not targeting civilians on purpose. We have declared settlers are part of the occupation and part of the armed Israeli force. They are not civilians,” Hamadan added.

His remarks came after a number of Western-backed rights groups, including Amnesty International, accused the resistance movement of killing “Israeli civilians” in their retaliatory strikes.

Asked whether civilians in southern Israel were considered settlers, the Hamas spokesman said “Everyone knows there are settlements there.”"