Middle East Eye – May 9, 2025

The Israeli military’s former chief of staff has accused his successor of “sending soldiers to commit war crimes” in Gaza and torn into Israel’s government for “losing touch with Jewish morality”.

In an interview with Israeli outlet Ynet on Thursday, Moshe Yaalon, who also served as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s defence minister between 2013 and 2016, said Israel had abandoned the captives held by Hamas and was carrying out a campaign of “ethnic cleansing” in Gaza.

Yaalon attacked the current military chief of staff, Eyal Zamir, saying he was not stopping “clearly illegal orders” and was ordering “his soldiers to be war criminals”.

“Call it ethnic cleansing, call it transfer, call it deportation – it’s a war crime,” Yaalon said, describing plans led by far-right Israeli ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir to occupy the entire Gaza Strip and evacuate its Palestinian population.

“Smotrich and Ben Gvir do not want to replace Hamas; they want Israeli military rule and Israeli civilian administration. Let them say it very clearly: they are going to occupy Gaza and settle it with Jews after it has been ethnically cleansed. Let them say it,” said Yaalon, who fought in the 1973 Middle East war and the 1982 invasion of Lebanon.

On Monday, Smotrich, Israel’s finance minister, said: “We are finally going to occupy the Gaza Strip. We will stop being afraid of the word occupation… We are separating Hamas from the population, cleansing the strip, returning the hostages – and defeating Hamas.”

Yaalon, who has previously stated that there was no chance of a Palestinian state being established in this century, said if Smotrich and Ben Gvir’s plan to “cleanse the entire population of Gaza” had been brought before the Israeli cabinet, then those cabinet ministers were “an accomplice to a war crime”.

He added that Zamir “should have stood firm and not allowed it to take place”.

The former chief of staff, who resigned from the Likud party and his post as Netanyahu’s defence minister in 2016 before joining the centre-right Blue and White alliance, accused the prime minister of not taking responsibility for his own decisions and prolonging the war on Gaza to ensure his political survival.

“You send the soldiers to commit war crimes, and then you say that the [military] will stay there forever… If the cabinet decided this, then you, Netanyahu, say that and don’t hide behind your chief of staff,” Yaalon told Ynet.

“The chief of staff is a commander within the army. Netanyahu hides behind him and then blames everyone else. He has not yet taken responsibility for 7 October, which is first and foremost his responsibility,” the former chief of staff said.

“Everything here is about stalling for time and holding on to this war, because the end of the war is the end of the term,” Yaalon added, referring to Netanyahu’s time in office.

‘Do you sleep with a clear conscience?’

Describing what he called a “historic opportunity to establish a regional camp against Iran”, Yaalon said that Netanyahu was alienating US President Donald Trump by siding with Smotrich and Ben Gvir, in part because the far-right ministers are threatening to break up Israel’s ruling coalition.

“This is a government of destruction,” Yaalon said. “All the damage it has done here in these 19 months, and all the damage it is doing now, is bringing us to destruction. A black flag is flying over it, and therefore, it must be replaced as quickly as possible to save the country.

“This government has lost touch with Jewish morality and the interests of the State of Israel,” he went on to say, before accusing it of abandoning captives held in Gaza.

“As far as I’m concerned, as someone who knows the details, all the abductees could have been released,” Yaalon added.

“Of course, a price had to be paid and security prisoners released, which is no small matter, but that’s what had to be done in November-December 2023 after 7 October.”

When asked about Netanyahu’s claim that he sleeps with a “clear conscience”, Yaalon replied: “Netanyahu abandoned them… When did we have a war like this?

“Who is responsible for that? Do you sleep with a clear conscience?

“A war that has been going on for 19 months, the longest in our history, and what interests him is holding on to power. There is no other consideration, no security interest.”

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