Former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said on Saturday that the Israeli army was carrying out ‘ethnic cleansing’ in the Gaza Strip. His comments sparked an outcry within the political class.
‘The road we are being led on is conquest, annexation and ethnic cleansing,’ Mr Yaalon said in an interview on the private channel DemocratTV.
Restarted by the journalist who asked him if he thought Israel was heading towards ‘ethnic cleansing’, Mr Yaalon replied: ‘What is going on there? There is no more Beit Lahia, no more Beit Hanoun, the army intervenes in Jabalia and in reality the Arabs are driven out, in reference to several towns in the Gaza Strip bombed by the Israeli army.
‘Shame’
Reactions abounded, with the Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, calling it ‘shame’ the fact that Israel had ‘such a character as head of the army and minister of Defense’.
Likud, the party of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, reacted in a statement castigating Mr. Yaalon ‘whose (…) lying comments are a gift to the ICC and the camp of Israel’s enemies’.
On November 21, the International Criminal Court (ICC) notably issued an arrest warrant against Netanyahu for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Moshe Ya’alon, 74, was the head of the Israeli army between 2002 and 2005, just before Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
Mr. Yaalon served as defense minister and deputy prime minister, before resigning in 2016, following differences with then-prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Support for refractory soldiers
Considered a hawk during his political career within Likud, he allied himself in 2019 with the current leader of the opposition Yaïr Lapid before retiring from political life in 2021.
Customary with shock phrases, he had recently supported the soldiers who had threatened not to report to the army as reservists, saying that if he ‘had been an officer in Hitler’s army’, he would have refused to do so. certain things, while adding that he ‘did not compare’ with the situation in Israel.
/ATS
Related News :