Food distribution in Nusayrat, yesterday. Yes, we are depriving Gaza residents of food, medicine, and minimal means of subsistence as part of a declared policy
Photo: AFP/EYAD BABA
Ehud Olmert
20:00 • May 22, 2025
The Israeli government is currently waging a pointless war, without a clear goal or plan, and with no chance of success. Since its establishment, the State of Israel has never initiated such a war. In this too, the gang of criminals, headed by Benjamin Netanyahu, has set a precedent that is unparalleled in the history of the country.
The clear result of Operation "Gideon's Chariots" is, first of all, chaos in the activities of the army units deployed throughout the Gaza Strip. This is true precisely in neighborhoods where our soldiers have already fought, been injured and fallen, and have also killed many Hamas fighters who deserve to die, and many uninvolved civilians. The latter have joined the statistics of false victims among the Palestinian population that are increasingly assuming monstrous proportions.
What is happening in the Gaza Strip in recent weeks has nothing to do with a legitimate war goal.Our fighters are being sent by the state leadership — and the army leadership that obeys it — to riot in the neighborhoods of Gaza City, Jabaliya, and Khan Yunis in an illegitimate military campaign. This is now a political-private war, and its immediate result is turning the Gaza Strip into a humanitarian disaster zone.
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In the past year, serious accusations have been made around the world against the conduct of the IDF and the government in Gaza, including accusations of genocide and war crimes. In media discussions in Israel and in the international arena, I have strongly opposed these accusations, although I have not spared criticism of the government. In the international media, you can hear all the voices in the public discourse in Israel, and you can identify those who speak out against Netanyahu and his eunuchs, as well as his opponents, who see him, as is customary to write in the media today, as the head of a crime family. I did not hesitate to be interviewed in Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Britain and elsewhere on the world stage. More than once, in interviews, I disappointed those who invited me when I firmly claimed that Israel was not committing war crimes in Gaza. Excessive killings — yes, an unimaginable number of uninvolved victims, including children, women and the elderly — did occur, but, I argued firmly and with self-convincing conviction, in no case was an order given by a decision-maker at the political level to harm civilians in Gaza without Distinction.
The large number of uninvolved civilians killed in Gaza was unreasonable, unjustifiable, unacceptable. But they were all, I said on every media outlet in the world, the result of a brutal war.
This war should have ended in early 2024, and it continues without justification, without a defined goal, and without a political vision for the future of the Gaza Strip and the entire Middle East. Even if the army, which is authorized and obliged to carry out the instructions of the political echelon, acted in many cases recklessly, carelessly, and excessively aggressively — it did so without an order or directive or intention from a senior command echelon to harm civilians indiscriminately. Therefore, as I understood it at the time, no war crimes were committed.
Genocide and war crimes are legal definitions that largely relate to the awareness and responsibility of those who have been given the authority to define the goals, conduct and objectives of the fighting, and the boundaries of the fighting and the limitations on the use of force. I have tried, at every opportunity given to me, to distinguish between the crimes attributed to us, to which I have refused to admit, and the lack of care and indifference to the Palestinian victims in Gaza and the unbearable human price we are exacting there. I denied the first charge, I admitted to the second.
In recent weeks I have been unable to do so.What we are doing in Gaza is a war of extermination: indiscriminate, unrestrained, brutal, and criminal killing of civilians. We are doing this not because of an accidental loss of control in a particular sector, not because of a disproportionate outburst of fighters in some unit — but as a result of a policy dictated by the government, knowingly, intentionally, viciously, maliciously, recklessly. Yes, we are committing war crimes.
First, the starvation of Gaza. On this issue, the position of senior government officials is open and clear. Yes, we are depriving the residents of Gaza of food, medicine, and minimal means of subsistence as part of a declared policy. Netanyahu is trying, as usual, to obscure the nature of the instructions he is giving, in order to evade his legal and criminal responsibility when the time comes. But some of his eunuchs are saying it openly and publicly, and even proudly: Yes, we will starve Gaza. Because all the residents of Gaza are Hamas, and therefore there is no moral or operational limitation on destroying them all, more than two million people.
Israeli media channels, each for their own reasons (some of which are understandable), are trying to tone down the picture of what is happening in Gaza. But the picture seen in the world is much broader, and above all, shocking. It is impossible to be even-handed and indifferent to it. It is no longer possible to ignore and shake one's head as if the world's reaction to what is happening there is simply a widespread outbreak of anti-Semitism, because after all, everyone hates us and everyone is anti-Semite.
It is impossible to ignore what is happening in certain units in the IDF. There are too many cases of brutal shooting of civilians, and of the destruction of property and homes without justification.
So, that's it. French President Emmanuel Macron is not anti-Semitic. I know him well and have spoken with him in recent months. During the French army's test, he stood on the front line in defense of Israel and cooperated in thwarting Iran's missile attacks. "We are fighting together with you against your enemies under my direction, and you accuse me of supporting terrorism," Macron said recently. He is a friend of Israel, as is Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoff, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Maloni, and many others who are increasingly joining them from among the most prominent and important European ministers and leaders.
They hear the voices from Gaza, they see the suffering of hundreds of thousands of citizens, they hear the voices that rise from cabinet meetings in Israel, and they understand what is obvious and clear: the ministers of the Israeli government, led by the head of the gang, Netanyahu, are actually adopting, without forethought, without hesitation, a policy of starvation and humanitarian pressure whose outcome could be catastrophic.
Voices are already beginning to be heard from governments friendly to Israel, such as Canada, Britain, and France , that extreme measures should be taken against the government — even though these could cause serious damage to the State of Israel. Macron suggested considering the continuation of the association agreement between Israel and the European Union, and the prime ministers of Spain, the Netherlands, and Italy have since suggested the same. The latter are two leaders who, unlike Macron, are identified with the right, and until recently have avoided any move that could embarrass Israel.
These voices will grow louder, and there is a danger that, in addition to the actions of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, actual punitive measures will be taken against the State of Israel, the economic and political (and in some cases military) cost of which will be fatal.
The Netanyahu government’s chorus of thugs and the poison machine it operates will immediately leap up with characteristic shrieks of rapprochement: The gentiles are anti-Semites. They hate us. They have always been against us. They support terrorism — and we fight terrorism. The truth is, these governments are not anti-Israel, they are anti-Israel. They believe that the government has declared war on the State of Israel and its residents, and the damage it is causing to the state may be irreversible.
I agree with them. I think the Israeli government is the enemy at home. It has declared war on the State of Israel and its residents.No external enemy among those we have fought in the 77 years of the state's existence has caused Israel greater damage than the Israeli government led by Itamar Ben-Gvir, Netanyahu, and Bezalel Smotrich. No external enemy has succeeded in undermining the social solidarity that has been the basis of Israeli society's strength in all the existential tests it has faced since 1948, as the Netanyahu government has done and continues to do.
I will briefly reiterate here what has already become a consensus among large sections of the Israeli public: This government is not worthy. It is unable and unwilling to do what is best for the country and its citizens. It is entirely preoccupied with destroying any basis for internal unity, for cooperation between publics, even those that are divided on fundamental issues, out of a mad enthusiasm to pit one against another, a mother against her children, fighters against fighters, brats and thugs against the kidnapped and their families, out of a sadistic, morbid, promiscuous and criminal pleasure, and of course it is not returning the kidnapped.
And amidst all this chaos, we continue to massacre Palestinian civilians in the West Bank as well. I said it and I won't go back on it: the youth of horrors commit heinous crimes every day in the West Bank, while the police and army units stationed in the crime zones turn a blind eye.
The murder of Tsala Gas is shocking. It is impossible not to feel pain over the fate of this young woman, and over the tragedy she suffered on her way to the hospital to give birth to her son, who I hope will survive and grow up in his loving family, who will surely protect him. But the declaration by the head of the Samaria Regional Council, Yossi Dagan, that Palestinian villages must be destroyed, is a declaration of genocide. When a Palestinian village is burned, and quite a few have already been burned, they will explain to us that the perpetrators are a small, violent group that does not represent the residents of the territories. This is a lie. They are many . The vanguard that attacks is always smaller. Behind it stand Yosef Dagan, who inspires them, helps them evade exposure and prepares the next wave of attackers. Where are the police? Where is the army? Where are the tens of thousands of settlers who will say that the youth of the atrocities are criminals who deserve prison time, and not spending time in the olive groves of the residents of the West Bank?
It is also impossible to ignore what is happening among certain units in the IDF, including the special units, where the best and most courageous fighters serve. There are too many cases of brutal shooting of civilians, of destruction of property and homes, even when this should not happen. Looting of property, thefts from homes, which in many cases IDF soldiers have also taken pride in and published in personal posts. We are committing war crimes. I do not share the opinion of Lt. Gen. (res.) Moshe Ya'alon, who said that we are carrying out ethnic cleansing. But we are approaching the point where it will be impossible to deny that this is the inevitable result of what the government, the army and our brave fighters are actually doing.
It's time to stop, before we are all ostracized from the family of nations and summoned to the International Criminal Court for war crimes, and a good defense won't stand a chance against us.
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