'I am ashamed of what we are doing in Gaza,' says ex-chief of Israeli security agency
Former Shin Bet head Ami Ayalon among 550 security officials to sign letter calling for end to war
Ami Ayalon says his desire to end the war in Gaza is both professional and personal.
Ayalon — the former head of Shin Bet, Israel's internal security agency — has signed an open letter on behalf of 550 former Israeli security officials calling for an end to Israel's military campaign in the besieged Palestinian enclave.
Speaking on behalf of the signatories, Ayalon says Israel long ago achieved its stated military goal of dismantling Hamas, and must now strike a deal to bring its remaining hostages home.
Speaking on behalf of himself, he says his country also has a moral imperative to end the suffering of Gazans.
"We wrote the letter as a result of the way we understand the war, and not because of the moral point of view," Ayalon, a former Labor Party lawmaker and Israeli navy commander-in-chief, told As It Happens guest host Rebecca Zandbergen.
"But I'm telling you the truth. Personally, I am ashamed of what we are doing in Gaza."
'Hamas no longer poses a strategic threat to Israel'
The letter, shared on social media and addressed to the U.S. President Donald Trump, is from an organization called Commanders for Israel's Security.
"It is our professional judgment that Hamas no longer poses a strategic threat to Israel, and our experience tells us Israel has all it takes to deal with its residual terror capabilities, remotely or otherwise," it reads.
It was signed by Ayalon, former chief of the Mossad intelligence agency Tamir Pardo, former Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) chief Matan Vilnai, former Israeli ambassador Jeremy Issacharoff and former Israeli police commissioner Assaf Hefetz.
Ayalon says the only path to security for Israel now is to pursue a two-state solution with Palestinians.
"If we really want to defeat Hamas, we have to defeat its ideology and the only way is to present a better ideology," he said. "And the only better ideology is to present the political horizon, which is a state alongside Israel."
Netanyahu digs his heels in
The letter comes as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces increased pressure, both at home and abroad, to cease hostilities in Gaza.
Netanyahu's office did not respond to a request for comment from CBC, but the prime minister is reportedly pushing for a full takeover of the Gaza Strip against the urging of his own military chief, according to a Reuters report that cites three confidential Israeli officials.
In a recent social media video alongside Ayalon, Yoram Cohen, also a 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.
Ayalon says he believes Netanyahu, who heads a right-wing coalition government, is motivated by solely by a desire to cling to power.
"The idea is to maintain his coalition and to make sure that this war will not end because the moment that this war will end, he is losing his coalition," Ayalon said.
Why Trump?
But the letter is not addressed to Netanyahu; it's addressed to Trump.
"It is a regional crisis with an impact on the international community, and we believe that the international community should interfere," Ayalon said.
"I'm not a psychologist and I don't want to pretend to understand the behaviour of Donald Trump. But the way I understand it, he was elected in order to end wars and not to start wars."
Pressed by reporters earlier this week, Trump declined to say whether the U.S., Israel's closest military ally, supported Netanyahu's plans to occupy Gaza.
"I know that we are there now trying to get people fed," Trump said. As far as the rest of it, I really can't say. That's going to be pretty much up to Israel."
Asked for comment on the letter, the U.S. State Department pointed CBC to Secretary of State Marco Rubio's remarks in a July 21 interview on Fox News with Lara Trump, the president's daughter-in-law.
"We're optimistic and hopeful that any day now we will have a ceasefire agreement," he said.
Israel has killed more than 61,000 Palestinians over the last two years, according to Palestinian health authorities, and razed huge swaths of Gaza to the ground.
The military campaign in Gaza is retaliation for Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants attacked Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 251.
Most of the hostages have been released in ceasefires or other deals. Of the 50 still held in Gaza, around 20 are believed to be alive.
Human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, B'Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights Israel, have accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, something Israel fiercely denies. The International Court of Justice is pursuing a genocide case against the country, brought forward by South Africa.
Gazans dying of starvation and malnutrition
More recently, aid groups, including Human Rights Watch, have accused Israel of intentionally starving Gazans by blocking aid and shooting Palestinians who are lining up for food.
Late last month, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, which monitors hunger around the world, issued a famine alert for the Palestinian enclave.
Some 188 Palestinians, including 94 children, have died from hunger since the war began, according to Gaza authorities, many of them in recent weeks.
Israel denies using forced starvation against Gazans and has repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that Hamas is stealing food.
Last month, Salma Altaweel, a mother of four in Gaza, told CBC she doesn't have "even one gram of flour" in her home, and her children keep asking why kids in other parts of the world can have all the food they want while they starve.
Still, she said she considers herself lucky.
"I know parents that are not able to feed their kids for many days. One lady told me that she ties the stomachs of her kids at night to make them sleep. Others are trying to eat anything, things that we were not able to eat, like the leaves of the trees," she said.
"Other people are falling, literally, they are falling in the streets."
With files from The Associated Press. Interview with Ami Ayalon produced by Chloe Shantz-Hilkes
