Nearly 600 former high-ranking officials of the Israeli security apparatus, including several former Mossad and Shin Bet chiefs, have urged former US President Donald Trump to pressure Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to end the war in the Gaza Strip. This was reported by Agence France-Presse, BTA reports.
“Stop the war in Gaza!“, reads an open letter from the “Commanders for Israel's Security“ movement (CSI), signed by 550 former generals, intelligence officers, police officers and diplomats.
“This war is no longer fair and is pushing Israel towards losing its identity“, warns Ami Ayalon, former director of the Shin Bet, in a video released in parallel with the publication of the letter.
Among the signatories are three former Mossad directors - Tamir Pardo, Efraim Halevi and Danny Yatom, five former Shin Bet leaders - Nadav Argaman, Yoram Cohen, Ami Ayalon, Yaakov Peri and Carmi Gil, as well as three former IDF Chiefs of Staff Ehud Barak, Moshe “Bogi“ Yaalon and Dan Halutz.
“On behalf of the CSI, Israel's largest organization of former military, intelligence and diplomatic personnel, we call on you to help end the war in Gaza. You achieved this in Lebanon, it is time to do it here,“ they address Trump.
The letter states that the Israeli army has already achieved the military objectives that can be achieved by force, defeating the Hamas militant groups and government. According to the CSI, the most important objective, the return of the hostages, can only be achieved through a diplomatic agreement.
“As professionals, we believe that Hamas no longer poses a strategic threat to Israel. We have ample opportunities to neutralize its residual terrorist activity, remotely or by other means,“ the authors emphasize.
They insist that “the pursuit of Hamas's senior leadership can continue later, but the hostages cannot wait“.
“Your authority among a large part of the Israeli public gives you the opportunity to influence Prime Minister Netanyahu and his government“, they conclude. The authors call for the formation of an international coalition to support reform in the Palestinian Authority and to offer an alternative to Hamas and its ideology.