Ehud Olmert, Israel’s prime minister from 2006 to 2009, has delivered a scathing rebuke of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Gaza campaign, denouncing it as “a war of extermination” and admitting his own country is committing “war crimes.”
📝 Olmert’s candid confession
Writing in Haaretz, Olmert admits that he once defended Israel against claims of genocide. Now, he can no longer ignore the civilian carnage:
“What we are doing in Gaza is a war of extermination: indiscriminate, unrestrained, brutal, and criminal killing of civilians.”
He emphasised this is not a battlefield mishap but a deliberate, government-dictated policy:
“Knowingly, intentionally, viciously, maliciously, recklessly… Yes, we are committing war crimes.”
🚫 Blockade and deflection
Olmert criticises the months-long blockade of food and medicine, arguing it cannot be dismissed as antisemitism. He lambasts Netanyahu’s recent tweet accusing Macron, Trudeau and Starmer of “emboldening Hamas” and warns:
“When mass murderers, rapists, baby killers and kidnappers thank you, you’re on the wrong side of justice.”
He labels the prime minister’s spin-machine a “poison machine” that decries every critic as an antisemite when they are, in fact, “anti-the Israeli government.”
🌐 Ostracised from the world?
Olmert’s final warning is stark:
“We risk being ostracised from the family of nations and summoned to the International Criminal Court for war crimes—and a good defence won’t stand a chance.”
🚨 Humanitarian plea
After a 2½-month aid blockade, Israel has recently reopened limited humanitarian corridors, but UN Secretary-General António Guterres condemns the levels as “woefully insufficient” amid “atrocious levels of death and destruction.”
📊 The grim tally
According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, over 52,600 Palestinians have died since October 7, 2023, compared to 1,200 Israeli deaths in the Hamas attack that ignited the current conflict.
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