‘We took the gloves off’: ex-IDF chief confirms Gaza casualties over 200,000 | Israel-Gaza war

Herzi Halevi, a former Israeli army commander, confirmed that more than 200,000 Palestinians were killed or injured during the war in Gaza, and that there were military operations that were blocked by legal advice during the conflict.

Halevi now served as the Chief of General Staff in March, after led the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) in the first 17 months of the war approaching its second anniversary.

The retired general said that at the beginning of this week, more than 10% of a community meeting in Southern Israel was killed or injured – “more than 200,000 people”. This estimation is remarkable because it is close to the existing figures provided by the Gaza Ministry of Health, where Israeli officials are often rejected as HAMAS propaganda, but the figures of the ministry are considered reliable by international humanitarian institutions.

The current official fee was wounded on 7 October 2023, 64,718 Palestinians and 163,859, who had been killed in Gaza since the beginning of the war. Thousands of people are afraid of dead, their bodies were buried in the rubble. Israeli strikes on Friday, mostly at least 40 people around the city of Gaza reportedly killed.

The statistics of the Ministry of Gazi did not distinguish between civilians and warriors, but until May this year leaked Israeli military intelligence data, claiming that more than 80% of the dead were civilians.

Approximately 1,200 people were killed in the Hamas attack on October 7, which fired the war, 815, Israel and foreign civilians.

“This is not a gentle war. We took the gloves out of the first minute. Unfortunately, not before, Halev said Halevi said that the Israel should take a harder line in Gaza before the October 7 attack.

The former commander was talking to Ein Habesor Moshav (agricultural cooperative) inhabitants who managed to push Hamas attackers on Tuesday night two years ago. Published by a record of the statements. YNET News Website.

“Nobody gently works,” Halevi said, but insisted that IDF worked within the international humanitarian law restrictions. This claim was repeated by Israeli officials who said that military lawyers were involved in operational decisions during the war.

However, Halevi rejected that legal recommendations affected military decisions of emergency primer in Gaza or the Middle East.

“Once nobody restricted me. Not once. Not military network [advocate general Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi] In the meantime, he does not have the authority to restrict me. ”

In an excerpt that was not in the registration but referred to by YNET, Halevi claimed that the main importance of Israel’s military lawyers was to convince the external world of the legality of IDF’s actions.

“There are legal advisors who say: We will know how to defend it legally in the world, and this is very important for the state of Israel, or he says.

IDF was approached to comment on the Halevi’s statements about the death fee and the role of military lawyers, but he did not respond on Friday evening.

Israeli Human Rights Lawyer Michael Sfard said that Halevi “confirms that legal consultants serve as tire stamps”.

“The generals see them as ‘regular’ consultants who can adopt or rejected recommendations, not as professional lawyers who offer their legal positions and what is banned,” he said.

On Wednesday, Haaretz newspaper Halevi’s successor IDF reported that Tomer-Yerushami ignored the legal advice of the Chief of General Staff. Lawyer General, the estimated 1 million Gaza city residents to be displaced, to leave before the IDF attack to leave, to get them in the Southern Gaza should be postponed until the facilities should be postponed, he said.

Most of the 40 Palestinian victims of Israeli strikes on Friday seemed like people who could not move to the south or did not want to leave their homes or shelters for the risk of going to a shelter or protection against Israeli bombing.