The former head of Israel’s military intelligence has been recorded saying that 50 Palestinians should be killed for every Israeli who died during Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attacks, adding that it “does not matter now if they are children”.
In recordings broadcast by Israel’s Channel 12, Aharon Haliva described the death toll in Gaza, which he put at more than 50,000, as “necessary” and a “message to future generations” of Palestinians.
“They need a Nakba every now and then to feel the price,” Haliva said, referring to the mass displacement of more than 700,000 Palestinians in 1948 following the creation of the Israeli state.
The remarks, an explicit call for collective punishment, represent one of the starkest acknowledgements from a senior Israeli figure of civilian targeting during the war. Collective punishment of civilians is prohibited under international law.
Haliva stepped down from his post in April 2024. His comments also appeared to confirm the casualty figures published by Gaza’s health ministry, which Israeli officials frequently dismiss as propaganda but which have been found reliable in past conflicts. The ministry said the death toll from Israeli attacks passed 50,000 in March and has since risen above 60,000.
Israel’s most recent figures put the number of militants killed at about 20,000, meaning the majority of those killed were civilians. “For everything that happened on October 7th, for every person on October 7, 50 Palestinians must die. It doesn’t matter now if they are children,” Haliva said in the broadcast.
About 1,200 people, most of them civilians, were killed in the Hamas-led assault, and around 250 were taken hostage.
Channel 12 did not disclose how it obtained the recordings, describing them only as conversations recorded “in recent months”. Haaretz reported that the material allowed the retired officer to speak at length without giving a formal interview.
Israeli media outlets largely avoided highlighting Haliva’s remarks about mass killings, focusing instead on his criticism of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and warnings of systemic failures in security and intelligence.
Inside Israel, Haliva is regarded as a centrist opponent of the government and its far-right ministers. In the recordings, he recounted an internal exchange in which a colleague suggested the state’s military response would have been weaker if the victims of 7 October had been predominantly from the political right.
“He told me: ‘If this had happened to us, the right, you wouldn’t have gone to war like this,’” Haliva said. “That’s what people believe here.”
