By News Desk, The Cradle.
Above photo: Reuters.
Demand ‘End To Gaza War’.
The former Israeli officials said Tel Aviv was ‘well past the point’ of ending the war with a significant achievement.
Over a dozen former Israeli security officials issued a joint video statement on 3 August demanding an end to the war in Gaza and warning that Tel Aviv is on the brink of “defeat.”
[https://twitter.com/UnxeptableD/status/1952130031784001791]
Former officials have also demanded that US President Donald Trump pressure Israel to end the genocidal campaign which has raged since October 2023 – in a separate letter accompanying the video and signed by 550 former security officials.
The video statement was made by 19 retired army chiefs, intelligence heads, Shin Bet and Mossad directors, and police commissioners.
Among them is former prime minister and Israeli army chief Ehud Barak, as well as former army chiefs Moshe Yaalon and Dan Halutz.
“Each of these people sat in cabinet meetings, operated in the inner circles, attended all the most sensitive decision-making processes. Together, they have more than a thousand years’ experience in national security and diplomacy,” said a voice over at the start of the video message.
The former security officials said in the video that the war could have been ended a long time ago, while demanding a permanent ceasefire and comprehensive captive exchange.
“We have a duty to stand up and say what we need to say. This war started as a just war. It was a defensive war. But once we achieved all its military objectives, once we achieved a brilliant military victory against all our enemies, this war stopped being a just war. It is leading the State of Israel to the loss of its security and identity,” said former Shin Bet director Ami Ayalon.
Israel is “well over a year past the point where we could have ended the war with a sufficient operational achievement,” according to former military intelligence chief Amos Malka.
Former Shin Bet head Nadav Argaman said, “We are now mostly offsetting losses.”
Additionally, ex-Mossad director Tamir Pardo lamented that Israel is “on the precipice of defeat.”
“What the world sees today is of our own creation,” Pardo added, referring to the famine and unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza. “We are hiding behind a lie that we wrought. This lie was sold to the Israeli public, and the world has long since understood that it doesn’t reflect the real picture.”
According to Yaalon, “there are moments that represent a ‘black flag’ in which one must stand firm and say: This far and no further.”
“Right now, we have a government that the messianic zealots have pulled in a certain irrational direction,” added.
Ex-Shin Bet director Yoram Cohen said that anyone who thinks Israel can “reach every terrorist and every pit and every weapon, and at the same time bring our hostages home” is living a fantasy.
In the separate letter, the officials called for Trump to pressure Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to end the war.
“Chasing remaining senior Hamas operatives can be done later,” the letter reads.
Netanyahu has been repeatedly accused by opposition leaders, families of the captives, and others of seeking to prolong the war to preserve his ruling coalition, made up of extremists and avid supporters of the settler movement – who have consistently stood against a deal to end the war.
Chief among them are National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
The Israeli premier is also accused of procrastinating in ending the war to avoid the several criminal cases against him.
Ben Gvir, Smotrich, and others in the government are actively pushing for the reoccupation and resettlement of Gaza.
Meanwhile, the Israeli army is reporting extreme exhaustion and fatigue, and is leaning increasingly towards a deal – even if the cost is ending the war.
Hamas has continued to demand a withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza and firm guarantees for a permanent ceasefire. Yet Netanyahu has repeatedly said that fighting will resume after captives are exchanged if the Palestinian resistance movement refuses Tel Aviv’s disarmament terms.
Tensions between Israeli army chief, government ‘reach their peak’
As the Israeli army continues to suffer losses in Gaza, Netanyahu is said to be seeking to release the captives ‘through military victory,’ not a deal.
Tensions “have reached their peak” between Israeli army Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir and the political echelon over the war in Gaza, according to an Israeli Army Radio report.
Zamir is demanding “strategic clarity” regarding the war, army radio’s military correspondent Doron Kadosh said.
Kadosh noted that “the cabinet hasn’t met for a long time,” and that the “army has no clarity on how to proceed, and is not receiving clear orders and instructions.”
Zamir is “pushing for a deal, saying that flexibility is possible and that an effort must be made to reach it,” he added.
“The army has made it clear that it will be prepared for any deal, regardless of the price,” even if it is a comprehensive deal that ends the war, Kadosh went on to say.
“The army’s position is that it must continue to control the areas under its control along the Gaza Strip border in any future agreement. The army is capable of withstanding the consequences of flexibility, even if Israel is forced to compromise.”
Kadosh also revealed that during closed-door talks, Zamir has told the political echelon that any prolonged military presence in the Gaza Strip “endangers Israeli forces, plays into the hands of Hamas, and increases attrition within the army.”
The army will present two options to the government if a deal is not reached – the first is to occupy the entire Gaza Strip, and the second is to encircle and exhaust it, according to the army radio correspondent.
He added that the army opposes the first option.
“Occupying the entire Gaza Strip is militarily possible and would take a few months, but clearing the area above and below ground could take years,” Kadosh cites the Israeli army chief as saying.
The army prefers the second option. Otherwise, “Hamas will continually drain it through guerrilla operations.”
Resistance operations against Israeli forces by Hamas’s Qassam Brigades and other factions in Gaza have escalated recently.
Eighteen Israeli soldiers were killed in Gaza in the month of July alone. The month before, 20 Israeli soldiers were killed in the strip.
Zamir was previously quoted as saying that the army is “exhausted” and is suffering from “deep fatigue.” Meanwhile, the Israeli government continues to push for the occupation and resettlement of Gaza.
According to a diplomatic source cited by several Hebrew media outlets, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is seeking to secure the release of captives “through decisive military victory,” further frustrating the families of the captives, who accuse the premier of endangering the lives of their relatives being held by Hamas.
“An understanding is forming that Hamas is not interested in a deal,” the source said. “Israel is in contact with the Americans,” the source added. US envoy Steve Witkoff recently said that Washington is no longer interested in partial deals.
Hamas has continued to demand a withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza and firm guarantees for a permanent ceasefire. Yet Netanyahu has repeatedly said that fighting will resume after captives are exchanged if the Palestinian resistance movement refuses Tel Aviv’s disarmament terms.
“We reiterate that resistance and its weapons are a national and legal right as long as the occupation persists,” Hamas said on Saturday, in response to Witkoff claiming the resistance movement was ready to surrender its arms.
4 August 2025
Source: popularresistance.org