Former Israeli army commander Herzi Halevi has said that more than 200,000 Palestinians have been killed or wounded in Israel’s war on Gaza, and that “not once” during the genocide has the army been constrained by legal advice, reported the Middle East Eye.
More than 10 percent of Gaza’s 2.2 million population has been killed or wounded, or “more than 200,000 people”, Halevi told a community meeting in southern Israel earlier this week.
Halevi led Israel’s onslaught on Gaza for the first 17 months of the war before resigning as chief of staff in March over the massive security breach on 7 October 2023.
The figure is in line with estimates from the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza, which Israel has dismissed, though the United Nations and international humanitarian agencies regard them as reliable.
Multiple authoritative reports by Israeli, Palestinian and international human rights groups have concluded that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, citing evidence of its acts of killing and destruction, as well as evidence of the intent to destroy Palestinians as a group in the besieged enclave.
Leading experts in international law and the Holocaust have also said that Israel’s actions in Gaza meet the legal threshold for genocide. “This isn’t a gentle war. We took the gloves off from the first minute. Sadly not earlier,” Halevi said, in a recording published by the Israeli Ynet news website.
Halevi insisted that the Israeli army abides by international humanitarian law, but said that legal advice had never restricted his actions.
“Not once has anyone restricted me. Not once. Not the military AG [advocate general Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi] who, by the way, hasn’t the authority to restrict me,” he said.
In addition to the recording, Ynet separately quoted Halevi as saying: “There are legal advisers who say: ‘we will know how to defend this legally in the world’, and this is very important for the state of Israel.”
Last week, the world’s largest association of genocide scholars passed a resolution, endorsed by 86 percent of its members, saying genocide is taking place in Gaza.
The resolution states: “Israel’s policies and actions in Gaza meet the legal definition of genocide in Article II of the United Nations convention for the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide (1948).”
The International Court of Justice is also investigating Israel for genocide, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant are facing arrest warrants from the International Criminal Court for war crimes in Gaza.
Last month, famine was officially declared in Gaza following months of total blockade and severe Israeli-enforced food shortages. As of 5 September, at least 361 Palestinians have died from malnutrition, including 124 children, the World Health Organisation said in a report on Wednesday.
