NEW YORK, Dec 02 : A former Israeli defence minister has accused Israel of committing war crimes and ethnic cleansing in besieged Gaza, The New York Times reported on Sunday, noting that it was a rare critique from a member of the security establishment at a time of war.
The comments by Moshe Yaalon, the ex-defence minister, came amid mounting international criticism of the Israeli military’s deadly attacks in Gaza, but allies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu immediately denied his charges
Yaalon served as the Israeli military’s chief of staff during the second ‘intifada’ and as Netanyahu’s defence minister during the 2014 Israeli war in Gaza, the longest conflict between Israel and Hamas before the current war. But he broke with Netanyahu in 2016 and has since become a critic of the Israeli leader.
At an event on Saturday, Yaalon denounced Netanyahu’s government for its aggression in Gaza.
“The path they’re dragging us down is to occupy, annex and ethnically cleanse, look at the northern strip,” Yaalon said. He also said Israel was being pulled in the direction of building settlements in Gaza, a notion that is supported by far-right politicians in Netanyahu’s government.
When the interviewer at the event asked Yaalon to clarify whether he thought Israel was on the way to carrying out ethnic cleansing, he responded: “Why on the way? What’s happening there? What’s happening there?”
“There’s no Beit Lahia. There’s no Beit Hanoun. They’re now operating in Jabaliya. They’re basically cleaning the territory of Arabs,” he said, referring to towns and cities in northern Gaza where a renewed Israeli offensive has caused extensive damage in recent months. Tens of thousands of Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed in Gaza since Oct 7, 2023. the war began in response to the deadly Hamas-led attack on Israel in October 2023.
Yaalon doubled down on his accusations on Sunday, saying on public radio that Netanyahu’s government was exposing Israeli commanders to lawsuits at the International Criminal Court and was putting their lives at risk.
“I’m speaking in the name of IDF (Israeli Defence Forces) commanders who are operating in the northern strip,” Yaalon told the Reshet Bet radio station. “They reached out to me expressing fear about what’s happening there.”
He later said, in an apparent reference to the government: “At the end of the day, they’re perpetrating war crimes”.
The Israeli military declined to comment on Mr. Yaalon’s accusations, which came ten days after the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former defence minister for crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza, the Times said in a dispatch.
Netanyahu’s office has rejected the accusations against the men in the warrants, calling them “absurd and false” and accusing the court of being motivated by antisemitism.
Israel’s Communications Minister, Shlomo Karhi, said Yaalon “crossed all the red lines.” while Tally Gotliv, a firebrand Likud lawmaker, called him “worse than our biggest enemies.”
Israel has called on Palestinians from the northernmost reaches of Gaza to evacuate on several occasions since the war began last fall, including in the first week of the conflict and again in October. Tens of thousands of people have heeded those warnings and fled, but many are believed to have remained in the area, either because they cannot or do not want to leave.
In recent months, aid organizations and world leaders, including US President Joe Biden, have warned of a humanitarian catastrophe in North Gaza. During that time, Israel has allowed little humanitarian aid to enter. Last month, Israel banned imports of commercial goods, claiming that Hamas was benefiting from their sale. North Gaza is the northernmost of Gaza’s five governorates.
Some Palestinians from Gaza also took note of Yaalon’s comments.
Akram Atallah, a Palestinian columnist originally from Jabaliya, said he considered Yaalon’s remarks to be “extremely important.”
“This remark strengthens the Palestinian narrative of what is happening in Gaza,” he said. “And it isn’t coming from an Arab official or a sympathetic member of the international community. It’s coming from someone who was a general at the top of the Israeli system.”
Meanwhile, Israeli troops killed two people in Jenin in the West Bank on Sunday, the Palestinian health ministry said in a statement.
The two Palestinians were killed “due to the [Israeli] occupation’s aggression on the village of Siir in the Jenin district,” it added.
Israeli forces had earlier announced the Sunday attack, claiming an Israeli “aircraft conducted a strike on ‘terrorists’ in … Jenin.”
Israeli occupation forces have killed more than 100 Palestinians and injured scores of others across the Gaza Strip over the past day.
Following the attack, the Israeli forces closed the area to rescue teams heading to the scene to help, the Palestinian Red Crescent said.
Israeli forces were “preventing our teams from reaching the ‘bombing site’ near the village of Siir,” it added.
Two eyewitnesses reported seeing the Israeli forces removing two Palestinian bodies from a bullet-riddled vehicle. Two vehicles near a wooded area were also destroyed.
At least 797 Palestinians in the West Bank have been killed by Israeli forces since tensions escalated last October after the Israeli regime unleashed a genocidal war against the
Gaza Strip.
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