Mathias Aguirre Havgar

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert (2006–2009) published an op-ed in Haaretz on May 22, 2025, condemning Israel’s war in Gaza as a “war of extermination” and accusing the Netanyahu government of committing war crimes, including the deliberate starvation of civilians. Full English translation below. — Ehud Olmert: The Israeli government is currently waging a senseless war — without purpose, without clear planning, and with no chance of success. Since its founding, the State of Israel has never initiated such a war. In this too, the gang of criminals led by Benjamin Netanyahu has set an unprecedented example in the country’s history. The clear outcome of “Operation Gideon’s Chariots” is, above all, chaos within army units deployed across the Gaza Strip. This is especially true in neighborhoods where our soldiers have already fought, been wounded, and fallen — and where they have killed many Hamas fighters, who deserved their fate, but also very many uninvolved civilians. The latter have become statistics in a monstrous toll of false victims among the Palestinian population. What has happened in Gaza over recent weeks has nothing to do with a legitimate war objective. Our fighters are being sent by the country’s leadership — and by the military command that follows its orders — to fumble through the neighborhoods of Gaza City, Jabalia, and Khan Younis in an illegitimate military campaign. This has now become a private political war, and its immediate result is the transformation of the Gaza Strip into a humanitarian disaster zone. Over the past year, serious accusations have been made globally against the conduct of the IDF and the Israeli government in Gaza, including allegations of genocide and war crimes. In both domestic and international media forums, I strongly opposed those accusations — even while offering harsh criticism of the government. International media hear all the voices from our public discourse. They can tell who parrots Netanyahu and his courtiers, and who opposes him — those who, as is now common in the media, call him the head of a crime family. I did not hesitate to be interviewed in Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, the UK, and other global venues. I often disappointed my hosts by firmly asserting that Israel was not committing war crimes in Gaza. Excessive killing? Yes. An unfathomable number of uninvolved victims — children, women, and the elderly? Certainly. But I claimed, with self-conviction, that there had never been a direct order from a political decision-maker to deliberately target civilians in Gaza. The number of non-combatant civilians killed in Gaza was unreasonable, unjustified, unacceptable. But as I said in every media outlet worldwide — these were the outcomes of a brutal war. This war should have ended in early 2024. It has continued without justification, without a defined goal, and without a political vision for Gaza or the broader Middle East. Even if the army — which is obligated to execute the decisions of the political echelon — often acted recklessly, carelessly, or with excessive aggression, it did so without any order, instruction, or directive from senior command to indiscriminately harm civilians. Therefore, I previously believed no war crimes were being committed. Genocide and war crimes are legal definitions that depend heavily on the awareness and responsibility of those empowered to define the objectives, conduct, and limits of warfare. I tried, whenever possible, to distinguish between the crimes we were accused of — which I denied — and the carelessness and indifference toward Palestinian victims and the unbearable human cost. I denied the first charge, admitted the second. In recent weeks… (Page 1/3) continues below Photo: AP. 2007.