Ex-IOF Chief: Our War in Gaza Isn’t a Gentle One

By Staff, Agencies

Former "Israeli" war chief Herzi Halevi has revealed the "Israeli" occupation forces' [IOF] absolute disregard for the principles of the international law during its October 2023-present war of genocide on the Gaza Strip.

“This isn’t a gentle war. We took the gloves off from the first minute,” The Guardian reported on Friday, quoting retired general Herzi Halevi as saying recently.

“Not once has anyone restricted me. Not once,” he added.

Those refusing to put a check on the IOF’s aggression, he added, included advocate general Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, the so-called top legal authority within the entity’s IOF.

Even if the advocate general would issue restrictive orders, he “hasn’t the authority to restrict me,” the former commander said.

The remarks fly directly in the face of the entity’s claims that its incessant attacks “comply” with the international law.

According to Halevi, the war has so far led to the loss or injury of more than 200,000 Palestinians, a figure that resembles data from Gaza’s health ministry.

The martyrs, he added, equal “more than 10% of Gaza’s 2.2 million population.”

The ministry’s latest figures show that the genocide has so far claimed the lives of more than 64,750 Palestinians, mostly women and children.

Hundreds of the victims have perished due to the entity’s near-total siege of the territory that runs concomitantly with its incessant bombardments of the densely-populated coastal sliver.

Thousands of others are, meanwhile, unaccounted for, feared to have either been trapped under the rubble or subjected to forced disappearance.

The occupation entity, though, often dismisses the ministry’s martyrdom toll figures.

Leaked IOF intelligence has also suggested that more than 80% of the martyrs were civilians, contrary to the enemy's claim of exercising care not to target non-combatants.

The general went on to suggest that "Israel" would first go ahead with committing illegal aggression, and then seek to throw an aura of justification and legality around it.

“We will know how to defend this legally in the world, and this is very important.”

According to “Israeli” human rights lawyer Michael Sfard, the remarks confirmed that IOF lawyers acted as simple “rubber stamps.”

The Hebrew newspaper, Ha’aretz recently reported that Halevi’s successor, Eyal Zamir had also ignored Tomer-Yerushalmi’s so-called advice to delay implementation of mass displacement orders across the Gaza City.

The city, the Gaza Strip’s largest urban area, is subject to the IOF’s most ferocious assault yet throughout the genocide. The assault seeks to bring the entire city under "Israeli" occupation by either claiming or forcing out its one-million-strong population.

The IOF has so far razed scores of residential towers across the city after issuing their occupants last-minute so-called evacuation orders.