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Middle East Eye
11-05-2025
- Politics
- Middle East Eye
Israeli officers admit assault on Gaza 'kills captives'
The Israeli government has not prioritised the safe return of captives amid its ongoing war on Palestinians in Gaza, a new investigation by Israeli news outlet Ynet has revealed. According to the report published on Friday, both the government and the military are fully aware that army attacks pose a grave risk to the captives and have, in fact, already led to fatalities. 'The manoeuvre kills captives, not theoretically, it actually kills them,' a security source told Ynet. The source cited a specific incident in November 2023 as an example, in which an Israeli air strike killed three Israeli captives along with a senior Hamas military commander, Ahmed Ghandour. 'That's what happens when you're pursuing two conflicting objectives at the same time,' said the source, who holds a senior position in Israeli intelligence. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters He stated that his main task within intelligence had become 'to save the hostages, mainly from ourselves', referring to the extreme danger Israeli military operations are believed to pose to the hostages' lives. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defence Minister Israel Katz and top military officials have repeatedly insisted that continued military pressure is the only viable strategy to secure the release of captives, 59 of whom are still being held in Gaza. 'Ask any officer in the army today what the current war plan entails, beyond vague talk of 'pressure' to bring back the hostages,' the source said. 'We've been trying that for 19 months. It doesn't work.' The source also described the planned expanded ground invasion as offering Hamas 'two options: release the hostages and we will kill you, or don't release them and we will still kill you. Of course, Hamas chooses the second option". Captives never a priority Haaretz reported earlier this week that securing the release of captives ranked at the bottom of six stated objectives for Israel's upcoming expanded military assault in Gaza, code-named 'Gideon's Chariots'. The primary goals of the operation reportedly include defeating Hamas, establishing operational control over Gaza, demilitarising the Palestinian enclave, dismantling Hamas governance infrastructure and 'managing and mobilising' the civilian population - with captive recovery coming last. According to the Ynet report, the return of the captive has not featured among the government's central military objectives since the war began, despite public declarations that both defeating Hamas and rescuing the captives were official aims. What is 'Gideon's Chariots', Israel's latest plan for Gaza? Read More » 'A few days after the attack, [Hamas leader] Yahya Sinwar offered to release the children, women and the elderly,' the Ynet investigation stated. However, 'Israel rushed to invade Gaza and no one thought about the hostages', a security source told the outlet, criticising the government's early decision-making. 'The claim that both goals could be achieved simultaneously was never translated into an actual plan on the battlefield,' added a senior security source involved in shaping the war strategy. Another military official quoted in the report described a year-and-a-half-long campaign of 'psychological warfare and propaganda' within Israel, aimed at shaping public perception of the captives' issue. According to the source, this campaign has had two main purposes: 'to give the hostages' families the impression that action is constantly being taken' and to suggest that 'if Hamas refuses a deal, the blame lies entirely with them, not with Israel'. Captives as cover for 'war crimes' As such, the newly announced expanded assault on Gaza, revealed last week, aligns closely with long-term Israeli strategic goals for the territory, according to the report. The Israeli military is reportedly preparing to seize full control of the Gaza Strip, displace the entire population into a confined area in the south and restrict humanitarian aid to the bare minimum needed to prevent mass starvation - all as part of the new military phase expected to begin soon. Netanyahu has repeatedly referred to his plan as the "final stage" of the war, despite mounting criticism from aid and rights groups that famine is threatening the entire population. Since resuming its offensive on 18 March after reneging on a ceasefire deal, Israel has refused to allow any aid into the besieged enclave. More than 2,720 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks since then, raising the death toll since 7 October 2023 to over 52,800. 'With the help of an alibi in the form of the hostages, they will flatten all the buildings that remain standing' - Israeli intelligence source An Israeli intelligence source told Ynet that the military is using the captive as a pretext to justify the war. 'With the help of an alibi in the form of the hostages, they will flatten all the buildings that remain standing,' the source said. The same source claimed the broader objective is to 'encourage 'voluntary emigration', which essentially means expelling Palestinians from Gaza to make way for settlers'. The expanded operation has been widely condemned by governments and international organisations around the world, who have warned of its catastrophic consequences for the civilian population. Former Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon also admitted that the plan represents a 'war crime' - whether you call it 'ethnic cleansing, transfer, expulsion'. He said the military would be 'directing soldiers to become war criminals' by implementing the plan.
Middle East Eye
06-02-2025
- Politics
- Middle East Eye
Indiscriminate bombardment of Gaza due to lack of intelligence, says report
The indiscriminate nature of the Israeli army's 15-month assault on Gaza was in part due to its inability to "pinpoint Hamas commanders", a new investigation reveals. The report by the news outlets +972 Mag and Local Call indicates that Israel lacked intelligence on the whereabouts of members of Hamas, prompting bombing runs that targeted wide areas including Palestinian citizens. "When targeting senior commanders in the group, the Israeli military authorized the killing of 'triple-digit numbers' of Palestinian civilians as 'collateral damage'," the joint investigation added, noting that Israel maintained "close real-time coordination with US officials" regarding the expected death toll. In some cases, the army killed Palestinians using several 2,000-pound bunker-buster bombs in a strategy called 'tiling' and failed to kill the intended target. According to the news outlets, strikes carried out often used US explosives, and were known to pose harm for Israeli captives held in Gaza, despite prior concerns expressed by military officers. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters Based on conversations with 15 Israeli Military Intelligence and Shin Bet officers involved in these operations, the investigation reveals that the military also intentionally deployed "weaponised toxic byproducts of bombs to suffocate militants in their tunnels". According to the investigation, Israel has long known that such bombs release carbon monoxide, a lethal gas that can kill through asphyxiation as far away as hundreds of metres. 'The gas stays underground, and people suffocate,' Brigade General Guy Hazoot told +972 Mag and Local Call. 'The tunnel becomes a death trap' '[We realized] we could effectively target anyone underground using the Air Force's bunker-buster bombs, which, even if they don't destroy the tunnel, release gases that kill anyone inside. The tunnel then becomes a death trap.' Though a spokesperson has previously indicated to the news outlets that such tactics were never deployed by the Israeli army, the new investigation reveals that the air force "conducted physio-chemical research on the effect of the gas in enclosed spaces, and the military has deliberated over the method's ethical implications". In one such case of using chemical byproducts to target Ahmed Ghandour, the Hamas brigade commander in northern Gaza, three Israeli captives were killed as a result. The army had told loved ones that it was unaware that they were held nearby the Hamas commander. The attack was reportedly authorised despite "ambiguous" intelligence noting that the three captives could have been in the area, according to three sources with knowledge of the attack. Several sources indicated to the news outlets that this was not an isolated incident, but one of many air strikes that knowingly killed or endangered the captives. War on Gaza: UN report accuses Israel of war crimes by targeting Palestinian civilians Read More » "While attacks were aborted when there was specific, definitive intelligence indicating the presence of a hostage, the army routinely authorized strikes when the intelligence picture was murky and there was a 'general' likelihood that hostages were present in the vicinity of a target," the investigation stated. Another military source told the news sites that "pinpointing a target inside a tunnel is hard, so you attack a [wide] radius", adding that as a result of the indefinite location, the targeted area could be as huge as tens and even hundreds of meters. In June last year, the UN human rights office (OHCHR) said that Israeli forces may have violated the laws of war in their campaign in the Gaza Strip. In a report that assessed six Israeli attacks that caused a high number of casualties and the destruction of civilian infrastructure, the OHCHR said that Israeli forces "may have systematically violated the principles of distinction, proportionality, and precautions in attack". "The requirement to select means and methods of warfare that avoid or at the very least minimise to every extent civilian harm appears to have been consistently violated in Israel's bombing campaign," said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk.
