Ex-Israeli army chief admits over 200,000 killed and wounded in war on Gaza

Israel's former Chief of Staff, Herzi Halevi, has admitted that the number of Palestinians killed and wounded in Gaza has reached over 200,000, contradicting the government's own rebuttal of Palestinian figures from the enclave.

During the meeting with Ein HaBesor moshav residents, Halevi, who served as military chief for the first 17 months of the war on Gaza, said that "more than 200,000 people" had been killed or wounded since October 2023.

The admittance, published by Israeli news site Ynet, contradicts the Israeli government's own rebuttal of the casualty rate in Gaza, which it says is inflated, even as the UN counts them as reliable.

As of Sunday, Gaza's Ministry of Health says that at least 64,871 Palestinians have been killed and 164,610 have been wounded.

Halevi also made comments about Israel's conduct during the war, and was quoted as saying: "This isn't a gentle war. We took the gloves off from the first minute. Sadly, not earlier," according to The Guardian.

He also said that legal advice had not affected his or his subordinates' military decisions since the start of the war, even as he reaffirmed the military's commitment to waging war in the confines of international law.

"Not once has anyone restricted me. Not once," he said, adding that military advocate general Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi didn't have any authority to restrict him.

Israeli publication Haaretz previously reported on 10 September that current military chief Eyal Zamir dismissed warnings from the military's top lawyer over the illegality of Israel's forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza City as part of a new operation to occupy the city.

He further claimed the military's legal advisers reassured him that they knew how to justify Israel's actions internationally.

Israel's military actions have seen it placed on both international courts, with the International Criminal Court issuing arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant on the grounds of perpetrating several war crimes, including starvation.

Since the arrest warrants were issued, starvation has grown in the enclave, with a UN-backed body declaring famine in north Gaza, and Gaza's health authorities saying that 422 people, including 145 children, have died of starvation.

The International Court of Justice is hearing a case brought about by South Africa over claims it has broken the genocide convention, a claim that is now agreed upon by many genocide and holocaust scholars.