Israeli war cabinet Minister and former Chief of staff, Gadi Eisenkot has criticized Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu’s handling of the war in Gaza.
He stated that discussions about achieving a complete victory over Hamas were impractical.
He also said that, unlike Netanyahu’s repeated statements of continuing to pound Gaza until the captives are freed, the only way to secure their release is to strike a deal with Hamas.
“It needs to be said, bravely, that … it’s not possible to return the hostages alive in the near term without a deal,” he said, blasting “anyone trying to sell fantasies to the public.”
Eisenkot said dramatic rescue operations are unlikely because the hostages are apparently spread out, many of them in underground tunnels.
According to him, claiming hostages can be freed by means other than a deal “is to spread illusions.”
Eisenkot also said that on October 11, Israel was on the verge of striking Hezbollah but he and Benny Gantz – also a former chief of staff – managed to convince officials in the war cabinet to hold off.
“I think our presence there prevented Israel from making a grave strategic mistake,” Eisenkot said.
Eisenkot also said strategic decisions about the direction of the war, now in its fourth month, must be made urgently, and that a discussion about an endgame should have begun immediately after fighting started on 7 October in response to the deadly Hamas attack on southern Israel.
Netanyahu has said many times that the war on the Palestinian territory “will not stop” until Israeli forces are completely victorious in their war aims.
Amid reports that Israel’s military is moving to a less-intensive form of combat in Gaza, Netanyahu said in a recent statement that Israeli forces “will continue to fight with full force until we achieve all of our goals”.
“I say this again so that no one will be in doubt: We are striving for total victory, not just ‘to strike Hamas’ or ‘to hurt Hamas’, not ‘another round with Hamas’, but total victory over Hamas,” he said in a heated speech, extracts of which were released later in a statement.
“We will not stop. We will not finish the war before returning our loved ones home; we will not finish the war before total victory,” he said.
UN Special Rapporteur Accuses Israel Of Violating International Law
The UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, Francesca Albanese said that Israel has violated international law with its violent bombing of the Gaza Strip, which led to the razing of entire neighbourhoods and the killing of more than 23,000 Palestinians.
“Israel has done a number of things that are largely illegal,” Albanese said at a press conference in Madrid.
She asserted that while Israel has the right to self-defense, “International humanitarian law must be respected to protect people not participating in combat: Civilians, prisoners of war, the sick and the wounded.”
“This means distinguishing between combatants and civilians, and ensuring that military attacks are proportionate to avoid excessive harm to civilians. Instead, what happened was more than 100 days of heavy bombing. In the first two weeks, 6,000 bombs were used weekly, bombs each weighing 2,000 pounds [about a ton], in very crowded areas.”
Francesca Albanese
She also pointed to the fact that most hospitals have been made dysfunctional.
“A good number of them, the major ones, have been closed, bombed or taken over by the army,” she said, adding that people are dying now not only because of the bombs but because there is not sufficient health infrastructure to cure them of wounds.
Moreover, she said that the number of children who get amputated every day is “shocking.”
“During the first two months of this (war) 1,000 kids were amputated without anaesthesia. It is a monstrosity,” she added.
Albanese said she “firmly condemned” the violence carried out by Hamas, which she said amounted to war crimes and may also be crimes against humanity, but “nothing justifies what Israel has done.”
