COMEDIAN Joan Rivers has delivered perhaps her most shocking rant to date, telling paparazzi at an LA airport that Palestinian civilians in Gaza “deserved to die.”

When asked about the rising death toll in Gaza, the 81-year-old was incensed, telling one photographer:

“The dead? You deserve to be dead. You started it. Don’t you dare make me feel sad about that.”

When told that almost 2000 civilians had been killed, “Oh my God! Tell that to the people in Hiroshima.

“Good. Good. When you declare war, you declare war. They started it,” she said, going on to describe Gaza’s Hamas government as “Terrorists. They were re-elected by a lot of very stupid people.

“They were told to get out. They didn’t get out. You don’t get out, you are an idiot. At least the ones that were killed were the ones with low IQs.”

Joan has already issued an apology — of sorts — for her remarks, placing the blame back on the media for taking her comments “out of context”.

In a post on her official Facebook page, she wrote:

“I am both saddened and disappointed that my statement about the tragedy of civilian casualties was totally taken out of context. What I said and stand behind is, war is hell and unfortunately civilians are victims of political conflicts. We, The United States, certainly know this as 69 years later we still feel the guilt of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The media, as usual, has decided to only quote the most out of context and inflammatory non sequitur rather than giving an accurate account of what my intentions were behind the statement. Along with every other sane person in this world, I am praying for peace. It is stupid and wrong and I am tired of bearing the brunt of attacks by people who want to sell newspapers or gain ratings by creating a scandal about me that is non-existent.”

In recent months, Rivers’ trademark barbed insults have offended many: She referred to First Lady Michelle Obama as a “tranny”, joked about Lindsay Lohan’s miscarriage and attacked half the women in Hollywood in her recently-published book.