Quds News Network

Occupied Palestine (Quds News Network)- An increasing number of Israeli officials are now openly condemning war crimes in Gaza, breaking what was once a political taboo. Acknowledgment of the military’s atrocities has begun to take hold in mainstream Israeli discourse. Here is a list of Israeli leaders who have admitted that Israel has committed war crimes in Gaza: Ehud Olmert Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel is committing war crimes in Gaza, and that “thousands of innocent Palestinians are being killed, as well as many Israeli soldiers”. Olmert, who was the 12th prime minister of Israel from 2006 to 2009, wrote in an opinion piece for the Israeli newspaper and website Haaretz in May, “This is now a private political war. Its immediate result is the transformation of Gaza into a humanitarian disaster area.” Olmert said he had often asserted that Israel was not committing war crimes in Gaza and claimed with conviction that “in no case did a government official give orders to hit Gazan civilians indiscriminately”. However, in recent weeks, “I’ve been no longer able to do so,” he said. “What we are doing in Gaza now is a war of devastation: indiscriminate, limitless, cruel and criminal killing of civilians. It’s the result of government policy – knowingly, evilly, maliciously, irresponsibly dictated.” “Yes, Israel is committing war crimes,” he concluded. “What is it if not a war crime?” he asked in an interview with CNN following his piece in Haaretz. He said Netanyahu and far-right members of his government are “committing actions which can’t be interpreted any other way.” “I think that we have to make sure that no uninvolved people in Gaza are hurt because of the expansion of these military operations, which is entirely unjustified and doesn’t serve any important interests of the state of Israel at this point,” Olmert added.

Former Israeli PM Ehud Olmert tells @biannagolodryga why he thinks Israel is now committing war crimes in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/goEgTbne3N
— Alex Marquardt (@MarquardtA) May 27, 2025

In an interview with NBR, Olmert reaffirmed his previous statements, asserting that Israel is committing war crimes. He cited racist remarks by Israeli ministers, including calls to starve the population of Gaza and to conquer and destroy the territory. In an earlier interview with the BBC, Olmert described the continuing assault as “a war without a purpose – a war without a chance of achieving anything that can save the lives of the hostages.” Olmert said what Israel “is doing now in Gaza is very close to a war crime.” Yair Golan Yair Golan, a former deputy chief of staff of the Israeli army, said in May “a sane country does not fight against civilians, does not kill babies as a hobby, and does not give itself the aim of expelling populations”. “Israel is on the way to becoming a pariah state, like South Africa was, if we don’t return to acting like a sane country.” Moshe Ya’alon The Israeli military’s former chief of staff accused current military chief of staff, Eyal Zamir, of “sending soldiers to commit war crimes”. In an interview with Israeli outlet Ynet in May, Ya’alon, who also served as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s defence minister between 2013 and 2016, said Israel was carrying out a campaign of “ethnic cleansing” in Gaza. Ya’alon attacked the current military chief of staff, Eyal Zamir, saying he was not stopping “clearly illegal orders” and was ordering “his soldiers to be war criminals”. “Call it ethnic cleansing, call it transfer, call it deportation - it’s a war crime,” Ya’alon said, describing plans led by far-right Israeli ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir to occupy the entire Gaza Strip and evacuate its Palestinian population. “Smotrich and Ben Gvir do not want to replace Hamas; they want Israeli military rule and Israeli civilian administration. Let them say it very clearly: they are going to occupy Gaza and settle it with Jews after it has been ethnically cleansed. Let them say it,” said Ya’alon. “You [Netanyahu] send the soldiers to commit war crimes, and then you say that the [military] will stay there forever… If the cabinet decided this, then you, Netanyahu, say that and don’t hide behind your chief of staff,” Ya’alon told Israel’s Ynet News. Ofer Cassif Ofer Cassif, a politician from the left-wing, Arab-majority party of the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality. In 2024, he signed a petition supporting South Africa’s case of genocide against Israel at the International Court of Justice. “My constitutional duty is to Israeli society and all its residents,” he wrote on X on January 7, 2024. “Not to a government whose members and its coalition are calling for ethnic cleansing and even actual genocide. They are the ones who harm the country and the people, they are the ones who led to South Africa’s appeal to The Hague, not me and my friends.”

Confessions from the Top: Israeli Officials Admit to War Crimes in Gaza

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