GazaHerald – The former head of Israel’s military intelligence, who resigned last year over his failure to prevent the 7 October attacks, has declared that Palestinians “need a Nakba every now and then” and described the spiraling death toll in Gaza as “necessary.”
In audio recordings broadcast on Israel’s Channel 12 program Ulpan Shishi on Friday, Aharon Haliva defended the mass killing of Palestinians, saying, “The fact that there are already 50,000 dead in Gaza is necessary and required for future generations.”
The comments are believed to have been recorded in March, when the Palestinian death toll surpassed 50,000. It has since climbed past 61,890, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
“A Nakba Every Now and Then”
Referring to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel in October 2023, Haliva said, “For each one (victim) on 7 October, 50 Palestinians have to die.”
He continued: “There’s no choice; they need a Nakba every now and then to feel the consequences. I’m not saying this out of revenge, but as a message for future generations.”
His use of the term “Nakba” invoked the 1948 mass expulsion of Palestinians during the creation of Israel, when Zionist militias forcibly displaced some 750,000 people and destroyed hundreds of villages.
Haliva also referred to Gaza as a “disturbed neighborhood,” suggesting that overwhelming violence against its population was a strategic necessity for Israel.
Israel says at least 1,195 people were killed in the 7 October attack. According to Haaretz, the army widely employed the controversial Hannibal Directive that day, which permits the use of any means, including lethal force, to prevent the capture of Israeli soldiers, even at the cost of their lives.
A Strategy to Block a Palestinian State
The recordings reveal Haliva’s view that Israel has deliberately fostered instability in Palestinian politics to derail any prospect of a two-state solution. He claimed that after the 2014 Gaza war, a plan was drawn up to dismantle Hamas, but Israeli leaders had no intention of following through.
“Listen, you don’t understand that there are much deeper things here,” Haliva said. “The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is at the heart of the matter, because Hamas is good for Israel; that’s [Finance Minister Bezalel] Smotrich’s argument.”
According to Haliva, Smotrich and other officials want to dismantle the Palestinian Authority (PA) and allow Hamas to gain ground in the occupied West Bank, as it did in Gaza.
“Why? Because if the entire Palestinian arena is destabilized and crazy, it is impossible to negotiate with,” he explained. “Then there will be no agreement [on a Palestinian state].”
He contrasted Hamas with the PA, noting that the latter enjoys international recognition. “Hamas is an organization that you can fight freely; it has no international justification, it has no legitimacy, and you can fight it with a sword,” Haliva said.
Ongoing genocide
Israel’s war on Gaza has continued unabated since October 2023. A brief three-stage ceasefire in January collapsed by March after Israel retrieved several captives and resumed bombardments, abandoning talks on a permanent truce with Hamas.
Since then, Israel has maintained the full support of the administration of US President Donald Trump, which has provided political cover and military aid for the campaign.
Nearly the entire population of Gaza, 2.3 million people, has been displaced multiple times, while relentless Israeli bombing has killed more than 61,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children.
Haliva’s remarks, equating mass Palestinian death with strategic necessity, expose a mindset that sees repeated catastrophe, “a Nakba every now and then”, as central to Israel’s policy.
