Former IDF intel chief: ‘Palestinians need a Nakba every so often to feel the price’

In leaked recordings, Maj. Gen. Aharon Haliva also said the IDF needed “dismantling and reassembly” in its thought patterns to ensure Israel’s long-term security.

 By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Former head of IDF Military Intelligence Maj. Gen. Aharon Haliva was caught on tape saying that Gazans need to suffer greatly for the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, invasion in order to prevent another attack on Israel in the future, in recordings leaked Friday on Channel 12.

“The fact that there are already 50,000 deaths in Gaza is necessary and required for future generations,” Haliva is heard saying at one point in conversations that took place over the last several months.

“OK, you humiliated, you slaughtered, you murdered; everything is true. The price, I said before [Israel invaded Gaza in] the war… For everything that happened on Oct. 7, for every person [murdered] on October 7, 50 Palestinians must die.”

“It doesn’t matter now [that] children [die]. I’m not speaking out of revenge, I’m speaking out of a message to future generations, there’s nothing to be done,” he continued. “They need a Nakba every now and then to feel the price. There’s no choice, in this disturbed neighborhood.”

Nakba, or“catastrophe,” is what the Palestinians call Israel’s victory in the War of Independence.

Hebrew-language media reporting on the recordings pointed out that Haliva had never been heard using such aggressive language before.

Haliva also reflected on the fact that Hamas had expected its fellow terrorist group in Lebanon, Hezbollah, to immediately join its invasion on Oct. 7, 2023.

According to many experts, this could have succeeded in at least a temporary takeover of portions of the Galilee, considering the number and training of Hezbollah’s elite forces, the stockpile of weaponry they had accumulated, and the low number of IDF troops on the northern border.

This was Hamas’ “biggest mistake,” he said.

When asked why Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah had not joined, Haliva answered, “He understood the cost of such a war. He understood that he’s not ready for that, that Sinwar had made a very grave mistake.”

Nasrallah had lost a son and had been in Beirut when the IDF attacked the capital in the Second Lebanon War in 2006, he added. “He remembered the cost. Sinwar didn’t see the cost.”

At another point, Haliva seemed to excuse the fact that signs of Hamas planning a large-scale attack were missed, or ignored, in intelligence circles before the war, including the activation of hundreds of SIM cards some nine hours before the invasion that began at 6:29 a.m.

“Do you know how many isolated reports there are all the time? Intelligence is one huge, crazy puzzle,” he said.

“If you acted on every single piece of information like that, you’d have to keep 300,000 reservists on active duty in the IDF every day,” he noted.

His focus up to Oct. 6 had been elsewhere.

“As the head of Military Intelligence,” he said, “I estimated that 2023 and 2024 would be a catastrophe in Judea and Samaria…. I would have told you that the chance that 50 Palestinians from a Palestinian village would come to observation posts and soldiers in Judea and Samaria at the Yakir post is greater than in Gaza.”

On a personal level, Haliva can be heard trying to absolve himself regarding the surprise of the Hamas attack, saying, “The first and last phone call I received at night was at 3:20 a.m. from my assistant,” who didn’t even mention the SIMs and said there was “an event” that was being taken care of by the IDF’s Southern Command and Operations Directorate.

Haliva ultimately took responsibility for the failure to protect the state and its citizens on Oct. 7 and resigned a year ago, thus becoming the first senior IDF officer to do so.

He acknowledged that he had had no choice, because “as head of the system, I am responsible for its successes and failures, that’s it.”

By the same reasoning, everyone on whose watch this occurred, he said, mentioning “the prime minister, defense minister, and security cabinet members,” should resign as well – something no politician has done to date.

Still, his bottom line was that the IDF needs a deep restructuring more than merely replacing those who were in charge on the day Hamas-led terrorists invaded Israel, massacred 1,200 people and took 251 hostages, 20 of whom are still believed to be alive in captivity, with a further 30 bodies held as bargaining chips.

The problem “is something much deeper, over many years,” which “demands a much deeper correction,” he said, which he defined as “dismantling and reassembly.”

This was especially true regarding the arrogance of the army in assuming that Israeli intelligence could always find out in time about enemy plans to attack the country, and its tendency to underestimate its enemies’ capabilities, he said.

“I think the night itself is not relevant,” he said.

His concern was Israel’s long-term security, and to ensure that, the IDF had to change, so that such a failure as Oct. 7 would occur “once every 100 years” instead of “once every 50 years,” he said, referring to the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when intelligence failures led to Israel coming the closest it ever has to being overrun by Arab forces, led at the time by Egypt and Syria.

Aharon HalivaIDFIsrael-Hamas warOctober 7