Netanyahu Announces Israel Will Occupy All of Gaza

‘We are on the precipice of defeat’: Former IDF chiefs of staff, intel chiefs demand end to Gaza war

More than a dozen former senior security officials put out a joint video with a call to end the war in Gaza, arguing that Israel has racked up more losses than victories, and that the fighting has dragged on for political reasons rather than being based on strategic military decisions.

Among the 19 retired IDF chiefs of staff, intelligence chiefs, Shin Bet and Mossad directors and police commissioners are former IDF chief of staff and prime minister Ehud Barak, former chiefs of staff Moshe Ya’alon and Dan Halutz, and ex-Shin Bet director Yoram Cohen.

“Each of these people sat in cabinet meetings, operated in the inner circles, attended all the most sensitive decision-making processes, the most delicate,” says a voiceover at the start of the video by way of introduction. “Together, they have more than a thousand years’ experience in national security and diplomacy.”

In the video, the men argue that the fighting in Gaza could have ended long ago, and demand that Israel end the war with a permanent ceasefire and comprehensive hostage deal that will see the release of all 50 remaining hostages in one fell swoop.

“We have a duty to stand up and say what we need to say,” former Shin Bet director Ami Ayalon says.

“This war started as a just war. It was a defensive war.

But once we achieved all its military objectives, once we achieved a brilliant military victory against all our enemies, this war stopped being a just war.

It is leading the State of Israel to the loss of its security and identity.”

Former military intelligence chief Amos Malka posits that Israel is “well over a year past the point where we could have ended the war with a sufficient operational achievement.”

Instead, supplies ex-Shin Bet director Nadav Argaman, “we are now mostly offsetting losses.”

“We are on the precipice of defeat,” concurs former Mossad director Tamir Pardo.

“What the world sees today is of our own creation,” he says of the dire humanitarian conditions in the Gaza Strip, brought about by long months of war with Hamas.

“We are hiding behind a lie that we wrought.

This lie was sold to the Israeli public, and the world has long since understood that it doesn’t reflect the real picture.”

“There are moments that represent a black flag in which one must stand firm and say: This far and no further,” Ya’alon declares.

“Right now, we have a government that the messianic zealots have pulled in a certain, irrational direction.”

“They are a minority,” agrees Cohen, “but the problem is that the minority controls the policy.”

He says that anyone who believes Israel can “reach every terrorist and every pit and every weapon, and at the same time bring our hostages home,” is entertaining a fantasy.

The security officials call for those currently in the offices they once held to take a stance against the continuation of the war.

They must “bravely stand up before the prime minister and before the cabinet and say their piece… about this war and its futility,” says Argaman.

“It is their duty to say what they can do and what cannot be done, even if someone really wants it,” he adds.

Netanyahu Seeks a Complete Takeover of Gaza

JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli Cabinet on Monday voted unanimously to fire the attorney general, escalating a long-running standoff between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the judiciary that critics see as a threat to the country’s democratic institutions.

The Supreme Court froze the move while it considers the legality.

Netanyahu and his supporters accuse Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara of exceeding her powers by blocking decisions by the elected government, including a move to fire the head of Israel’s domestic security agency, another ostensibly apolitical office. She has said there is a conflict of interest because Netanyahu and several former aides face a series of criminal investigations.

Critics accuse Netanyahu, who is on trial for corruption, of undermining judicial independence and seeking to concentrate power in the hands of his coalition government, the most nationalist and religious in Israel’s history. Netanyahu denies the allegations and says he is the victim of a witch hunt by hostile judicial officials egged on by the media.

An attempt by Netanyahu’s government to overhaul the judiciary in 2023 sparked months of mass protests, and many believe it weakened the country ahead of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack later that year that triggered the war in the Gaza Strip.

The Movement for Quality Government in Israel, a prominent watchdog group, said it filed an emergency petition with the Supreme Court following Monday’s vote.

It said more than 15,000 citizens have joined the petition, calling the dismissal “illegal” and “unprecedented.”

In a statement, the group accused the government of changing dismissal procedures only after failing to legally remove Baharav-Miara under the existing rules. It also cited a conflict of interest related to Netanyahu’s ongoing trial.

“This decision turns the role of the attorney general into a political appointment,” the group said. “The legal battle will continue until this flawed decision is overturned.”

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