By Max Blumenthal
Aug 22, 2025
In comments leaked by Israel’s Channel 12 this August 16, the Israeli army’s former head of military intelligence, Aharon Haliva, called for a “new Nakba” against the Palestinians and declared, “50,000 dead in Gaza is necessary and required for future generations.”
“For everything that happened on October 7, he proclaimed, “for every person on October 7, 50 Palestinians need to die. It does not matter now if they are children.”
Haliva’s remarks offer further proof of Israel’s genocidal intent in Gaza, and provide fresh evidence in future prosecutions of the country’s military and political leadership for crimes against humanity.
While social media users reeled in horror at his fascistic rhetoric, few noticed a revelation by Haliva which should cast the Al Aqsa Flood operation on October 7 in an entirely new light.
According to Haliva, “After the holidays [in the Fall of 2022], we were opening a joint reorganization with [Israel’s General Security Services] Shin Bet to collect intelligence on [Al-Qassam Chief of Staff Mohammed] Deif and [Hamas Secretary Genera Yahya] Sinwar in order to kill them, because every time we prepared a plan, they moved, and you have to re-collect on them.”
In other words, Israel was planning to violate its ceasefire with Hamas and launch a major decapitation strike against its leading figures, much like the one it deployed against Iran’s military leadership this June 13, when it assassinated 8 major IRGC officials without provocation. The killings would have touched off a major war, but unlike after October 7, Hamas would have been left without any negotiating leverage, as it would have had no Israeli captives in its possession when hostilities began.
When seen in this light, Al Aqsa Flood was a preemptive strike. Sinwar and Deif almost certainly understood that Israel was plotting their assassinations as the opening blow of a punishing assault aimed at snuffing out Palestinian resistance in Gaza once. Deif had already survived four assassination attempts, losing his family, an eye and use of several limbs in the process. As Haliva acknowledged, he and Sinwar were constantly on the move to evade their would-be killers.
And so, as the sun rose on October 7, 2023, Hamas took the initiative, denying a far more powerful adversary the devastating opening move it had methodically planned.
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