{"id":308537,"date":"2025-05-12T06:05:09","date_gmt":"2025-05-12T06:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=308537"},"modified":"2025-05-14T07:21:43","modified_gmt":"2025-05-14T07:21:43","slug":"israel-sending-soldiers-to-commit-war-crimes-in-gaza-says-former-army-chief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=308537","title":{"rendered":"Israel ‘sending soldiers to commit war crimes in Gaza’, says former army chief"},"content":{"rendered":"

Middle East Eye \u2013 May 9, 2025<\/strong><\/h1>\n

The Israeli military\u2019s former chief of staff has accused his successor of \u201csending soldiers to commit war crimes\u201d in Gaza and torn into Israel<\/a>\u2019s government for \u201closing touch with Jewish morality\u201d.<\/p>\n

In an interview<\/a> with Israeli outlet Ynet on Thursday, Moshe Yaalon, who also served as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s defence minister between 2013 and 2016, said Israel had abandoned the captives held by Hamas and was carrying out a campaign of \u201cethnic cleansing\u201d in Gaza.<\/p>\n

Yaalon attacked the current military chief of staff, Eyal Zamir, saying he was not stopping \u201cclearly illegal orders\u201d and was ordering \u201chis soldiers to be war criminals\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cCall it ethnic cleansing, call it transfer, call it deportation – it\u2019s a war crime,\u201d 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<\/a> population.<\/p>\n

\u201cSmotrich 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,\u201d said Yaalon, who fought in the 1973 Middle East war and the 1982 invasion of Lebanon.<\/p>\n

On Monday, Smotrich, Israel\u2019s finance minister, said<\/a>: \u201cWe are finally going to occupy the Gaza Strip. We will stop being afraid of the word occupation\u2026 We are separating Hamas from the population, cleansing the strip, returning the hostages – and defeating Hamas.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019s plan to \u201ccleanse the entire population of Gaza\u201d had been brought before the Israeli cabinet, then those cabinet ministers were \u201can accomplice to a war crime\u201d.<\/p>\n

He added that Zamir \u201cshould have stood firm and not allowed it to take place\u201d.<\/p>\n

The former chief of staff, who resigned from the Likud party and his post as Netanyahu\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou send the soldiers to commit war crimes, and then you say that the [military] will stay there forever\u2026 If the cabinet decided this, then you, Netanyahu, say that and don\u2019t hide behind your chief of staff,\u201d Yaalon told Ynet.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 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,\u201d the former chief of staff said.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything here is about stalling for time and holding on to this war, because the end of the war is the end of the term,\u201d Yaalon added, referring to Netanyahu\u2019s time in office.<\/p>\n

‘Do you sleep with a clear conscience?’<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Describing what he called a \u201chistoric opportunity to establish a regional camp against Iran\u201d, 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\u2019s ruling coalition.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a government of destruction,\u201d Yaalon said. \u201cAll 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis government has lost touch with Jewish morality and the interests of the State of Israel,\u201d he went on to say, before accusing it of abandoning captives held in Gaza.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs far as I’m concerned, as someone who knows the details, all the abductees could have been released,\u201d Yaalon added.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked about Netanyahu\u2019s claim that he sleeps with a \u201cclear conscience\u201d, Yaalon replied: \u201cNetanyahu abandoned them\u2026 When did we have a war like this?<\/p>\n

“Who is responsible for that? Do you sleep with a clear conscience?<\/p>\n

\u201cA 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Moshe Yaalon, who served as Benjamin Netanyahu’s defence minister, has accused the Israeli government of ‘losing touch with Jewish morality’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":308541,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[118,61,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-308537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-7-10-gaza-war","category-Commentary","category-Israel_Anti-Semitism_Zionism_and_US-UK_allies"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=308537"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308537\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":308540,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308537\/revisions\/308540"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/308541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=308537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=308537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=308537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}