For every 1,195 people killed in the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, 50 Palestinians must die, whether they are children or not, Maj. Gen. Aharon Haliva, former head of the IDF General Staff Intelligence Directorate, said in a recording broadcast by Israel’s Channel 12 television.
Haliva stressed that the death toll in Gaza, which he estimated at over 50,000, is “necessary” as a “message to future generations” of Palestinians.
“They need a Nakba every now and then to feel the cost,” he added, referring to the mass expulsion of more than 700,000 Palestinians from their homes and lands since the creation of Israel in 1948. Nakba means “catastrophe” in Arabic.
As The Guardian notes, many in the Israeli leadership and media have used genocidal rhetoric against Palestinians since the Hamas attacks on October 7, including calling them “animal people,” saying there are “no innocents” in Gaza, and calling for the total destruction and ethnic cleansing of Gaza. However, Khaliwa’s comments are illegal under international law.
Channel 12 said the conversations released were recorded “in recent months.”
“The fact that there are already 50,000 victims in Gaza is necessary and obliges future generations. For everything that happened on October 7, for every person killed on October 7, 50 Palestinians must die. It doesn’t matter if they are children or not,” the former official said in the recording.
Channel 12 did not specify how Haliva obtained the recordings or with whom Haliva spoke. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz described the recordings as a format that allows the retired officer “to give an interview… without being the actual interviewer.”
Haliva’s comments on the mass killing of Palestinian civilians, meanwhile, did not make headlines in other leading Israeli media.