Hundreds of retired Israeli safety officers, together with former heads of intelligence companies, have urged U.S. President Donald Trump to strain their very own authorities to end the war in Gaza.
“It is our professional judgement that Hamas no longer poses a strategic threat to Israel,” the previous officers wrote in an open letter shared with the media on Monday.
“At first this war was a just war, a defensive war, but when we achieved all military objectives, this war ceased to be a just war,” stated Ami Ayalon, former director of the Shin Bet safety service.
The war, nearing its twenty third month, “is leading the State of Israel to lose its security and identity,” Mr. Ayalon warned in a video launched to accompany the letter.
Signed by 550 folks, together with former chiefs of Shin Bet and the Mossad spy company, the letter known as on Mr. Trump to “steer” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in direction of a ceasefire.
Israel launched its navy operation within the Gaza Strip in response to the lethal October 7, 2023 assault by Palestinian militant group Hamas.
In latest weeks Israel has come underneath rising worldwide strain to agree a ceasefire that would Israeli hostages launched from Gaza and UN companies distribute humanitarian assist.
But some in Israel, together with ministers in Netanyahu’s coalition authorities, are as a substitute pushing for Israeli forces to push on and for Gaza to be occupied in entire or partly.
The letter was signed by three former Mossad heads: Tamir Pardo, Efraim Halevy and Danny Yatom.
Others signatories embody 5 former heads of Shin Bet — Ayalon in addition to Nadav Argaman, Yoram Cohen, Yaakov Peri and Carmi Gilon — and three former navy chiefs of employees, together with former prime minister Ehud Barak, former defence minister Moshe Yaalon and Dan Halutz.
The letter argued that the Israeli navy “has long accomplished the two objectives that could be achieved by force: dismantling Hamas’s military formations and governance.”
“The third, and most important, can only be achieved through a deal: bringing all the hostages home,” it added.
“Chasing remaining senior Hamas operatives can be done later,” the letter stated.
In the letter, the previous officers inform Trump that he has credibility with nearly all of Israelis and might put strain on Netanyahu to end the war and return the hostages.
After a ceasefire, the signatories argue, Trump might drive a regional coalition to help a reformed Palestinian Authority to take cost of Gaza in its place to Hamas rule.
