But Netanyahu suggested in an interview on the “Call Me Back” podcast conducted on Sunday that the death toll in Gaza was actually around 30,000 and that Hamas fighters accounted for nearly half of that toll.
Gazan authorities do not provide an overview of the number of Palestinian militants killed, but have repeatedly said that a large majority of those killed in the war have been women and children.
The United Nations and a long line of countries have voiced alarm at the number of civilian deaths.
United Nations rights chief Volker Turk warned in a statement last month that children especially are “disproportionately paying the ultimate price in this war”.
But Netanyahu insisted to podcaster Dan Senor that Israel had “been able to keep the ratio of civilians to combatants killed … (to) a ratio of about one to one”.
“Fourteen thousand have been killed, combatants, and probably around 16,000 civilians have been killed,” he said.
He gave similar figures in March during an interview with Politico, at a time when Gaza’s health ministry was reporting a toll of at least 31,045.
Netanyahu said at the time that the figure included 13,000 militants and the number of civilians was “far less than” 20,000.
His latest comment comes at a time of intensified pressure from Israel’s chief military supplier, the United States, over the Palestinian toll from the war.
Washington paused delivery of 3,500 bombs, and US President Joe Biden warned he would stop supplying artillery shells and other weapons if Israel carries out a full-scale invasion of Rafah, where around one million people are sheltering.
A US State Department report on Friday said it was “reasonable to assess” that Israel has used American arms in ways inconsistent with standards on humanitarian rights but that the United States could not reach “conclusive findings”.
Biden, who is running for re-election this year, has faced heavy criticism from his own supporters domestically for his support of Israel.
Some of those critics have accused Israel of committing genocide, a claim dismissed by the White House and Israel.
“We do not believe what is happening in Gaza is a genocide. We have been firmly on record rejecting that proposition,” US national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters at the White House on Monday.
Sullivan said that the US had also presented its position on this issue in writing and in detail before the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
In an interim ruling, the UN court ordered Israel to take protective measures to prevent genocide.
Israel argues it invoked the right to self defence after the October 7 attacks by Hamas, which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians.
Hamas militants also seized around 250 hostages, scores of whom were freed during a week-long truce in November. Israel estimates 128 captives remain in Gaza, including 36 the military says are dead.
On Monday, Israel marked an especially sombre Memorial Day, with ceremonies commemorating fallen soldiers, including the more than 600 killed since October 7, more than half of them in the initial attack.
Agence France-Presse, Reuters, Associated Press and dpa