Former Israeli security officials call to end the war in Gaza as Netanyahu hints at new stage
Jerusalem, Aug 5 (AP): Former Israeli army and intelligence chiefs called for an end to the war in Gaza as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hinted at further military action and Israel's government plotted its next move in the devastated territory.
On the ground in Gaza, health officials reported new deaths Tuesday of Palestinians seeking food at distribution points. The Israeli defense body coordinating aid to Gaza announced a new deal with local merchants to improve aid deliveries as desperation mounts.
The former security officials speaking out included those who led Israel's Shin Bet internal security service, Mossad spy agency and the Israeli military. In a roughly three-minute video posted to social media this week, they demanded an end to the war and said the far-right members of the government are holding the country “hostage” in prolonging the conflict.
“This is leading the state of Israel to the loss of its security and its identity,” Ami Ayalon, former head of Shin Bet, said in the footage.
Yoram Cohen, former head of Shin Bet, called Netanyahu's objectives “a fantasy.”
“If anyone imagines that we can reach every terrorist and every pit and every weapon and in parallel bring our hostages home — I think it is impossible,” he said.
Next stage of the war
Netanyahu, meanwhile, announced Monday that he would convene his Security Cabinet in the coming days to direct the army on the next stage of the war, hinting that even tougher military action was an option in Gaza.
Netanyahu said he remained committed to achieving his war objectives, including defeating Hamas, releasing all hostages and ensuring Gaza never again threatens Israel.
Israeli media said the meeting was expected Tuesday, with disagreements between Netanyahu and the army chief, Lt Gen Eyal Zamir, on how to proceed.
The reports, citing anonymous officials in Netanyahu's office, said the prime minister was pushing the army, which already controls about three quarters of Gaza, to conquer the entire territory, a step that could endanger the hostages, deepen the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and further isolate Israel internationally.
Various reports have said Zamir opposes this step and could step down or be pushed out if it is approved.
Aid through local merchants
Several hundred Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since May while heading toward food distribution sites, airdropped parcels and aid convoys in the Gaza Strip, according to witnesses, local health officials and the United Nations human rights office.
The Israeli military says it only has fired warning shots and disputes the toll.
The Israeli defense body in charge of coordinating aid to Gaza, called COGAT, wrote on social platform X that there will be a “gradual and controlled renewal of the entry of goods through the private sector in Gaza.”
“This aims to increase the volume of aid entering the Gaza Strip, while reducing reliance on aid collection by the U.N. and international organisations,” it said Tuesday.
A limited number of local merchants were approved for the plan and will sell basic food products, baby food, fruits and vegetables and hygiene supplies through bank transfers, COGAT said.
Deaths while seeking aid
Local health officials said Israeli forces opened fire Tuesday morning toward Palestinians seeking desperately needed aid and in targeted attacks in the central and southern Gaza Strip, killing at least 25 people.
The Israeli military did not have an immediate comment.
The dead include 19 people who were killed in southern Gaza, 12 of them seeking aid near the Morag corridor and in Teina area, some 3 kilometres from the Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation hub east of Khan Younis, according to the Nasser hospital and the Ministry of Health.
The ministry doesn't distinguish between fighters and civilians and operates under the Hamas government. The UN and other international organizations see it as the most reliable source of data on casualties.
Elsewhere in central Gaza, Al-Awda hospital said it received the bodies of six Palestinians who were killed Tuesday after Israeli troops targeted crowds near an aid distribution site run by the GHF.
The GHF, however, said there were no incidents at their sites Tuesday.
Stained with humiliation and blood'
Mohammed Qassas from Khan Younis in southern Gaza said his children are so hungry that he is forced to storm aid trucks.
“I have young children, how am I supposed to feed them? No one has mercy. This resembles the end of the world,” he said Monday. “If we fight, we get the food. If we don't fight, we don't get anything.”
As the trucks drove away, men climbed onto them, scrambling for any remaining scraps.
“The conditions are very challenging and we are hoping for a system to be in place,” Qassas said. “Some people go home with some 200 kilograms (441 pounds), and others go home with only one kilogram (35 ounces). It is a mafia-like system.”
After relentless efforts to get food from the trucks, it has become a routine for men to be seen coming back carrying flour sacks on their back, as well as carrying wounded and dead bodies from near the aid sites.
Yusif Abu Mor from Khan Younis said the trucks' aid system is akin to a death trap.
“This aid is stained with humiliation and blood,” he said, adding that aid seekers run the risk of being killed by shootings or run over by aid trucks surrounded by crowds of hungry Palestinians.
Slide toward famine
Israel's blockade and military offensive have made it nearly impossible to safely deliver aid, contributing to the territory's slide toward famine nearly 22 months into the war with Hamas. Aid groups say Israel's week-old measures to allow more aid in are far from sufficient. Families of hostages in Gaza fear starvation affects them too, but blame Hamas.
As international alarm has mounted, several countries have airdropped aid over Gaza. The UN and aid groups call such drops costly and dangerous for residents, and say they deliver far less aid than trucks.
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NATO, others turn down US call for help in Hormuz: Trump
Washington (PTI): President Donald Trump on Tuesday said NATO and most of US' other allies have rejected his calls to help secure the Strait of Hormuz as the war with Iran entered the third week.
In a social media post, Trump asserted that Iran’s military has been “decimated” and he no longer felt the need for assistance from NATO countries or anyone else.
Last week, Trump had sought help from European nations and others who depend on oil supplies transiting from the Hormuz Strait to safeguard the critical waterway.
“The United States has been informed by most of our NATO “Allies” that they don’t want to get involved with our Military Operation against the Terrorist Regime of Iran, in the Middle East, this, despite the fact that almost every Country strongly agreed with what we are doing, and that Iran cannot, in any way, shape, or form, be allowed to have a Nuclear Weapon,” the US President said in a post on Truth Social.
Iran's attacks on Gulf nations and its grip on the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world's oil is transported, have sparked increasing concerns of a global energy crisis and are unnerving the world economy.
“I am not surprised by their action, however, because I always considered NATO, where we spend Hundreds of Billions of Dollars per year protecting these same Countries, to be a one-way street — We will protect them, but they will do nothing for us, in particular, in a time of need,” Trump said.
He said Australia, Japan and South Korea too have turned down his call for help.
“Fortunately, we have decimated Iran’s Military – Their Navy is gone, their Air Force is gone, their Anti-Aircraft and Radar is gone and perhaps, most importantly, their Leaders, at virtually every level, are gone, never to threaten us, our Middle Eastern Allies, or the World, again,” Trump said.
He said that given the scale of recent military successes, the US no longer "need" or desires assistance from NATO countries, adding that it never relied on such support in the first place.
Speaking as President of the United States, the "most powerful" country in the world, "we do not need" help from anyone, Trump said.
The West Asia conflict began on February 28 when the US-Israeli combine conducted airstrikes on Iran.
The Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway that connects the Persian Gulf to the open ocean, has effectively been shut following the US and Israel attack on Iran and Tehran's sweeping retaliation.
However, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi had said that from Tehran's "perspective", the strait is "open". "It is only closed to Iran's enemies, to those who carried out unjust aggression against our country and to their allies.”
Earlier in the day, a second Indian-flagged LPG tanker, Nanda Devi, reached the country after safely sailing from the war-hit Strait of Hormuz. On Monday, the first ship, Shivalik, reached Mundra port in Gujarat.
As of now, 22 Indian vessels remain on the west side and two on the east side of the strait.
Indian authorities are in constant touch with all the relevant stakeholders in the region to secure the safe passage of the remaining ships, officials said.
