Emma Graham-Harrison
The Guardian / August 17, 2025
‘It does not matter if they are children,’ said Aharon Haliva in recorded comments calling the death toll ‘necessary’
Jerusalem – The Israeli general who headed military intelligence on 7 October 2023 has said 50 Palestinians must die for every person killed that day and “it does not matter now if they are children”, in recordings broadcast by Israel’s Channel 12 TV station.
Aharon Haliva said the toll in Gaza, which he put at more than 50,000 dead, was “necessary” as a “message to future generations” of Palestinians.
“They need a Nakba every now and then to feel the price,” he added, referring to the mass expulsion of more than 700,000 Palestinians from their homes and lands after the creation of Israel in 1948. Nakba means catastrophe in Arabic.
Much of Israel’s leadership and media has used genocidal rhetoric about Palestinians since Hamas’s 7 October attacks, including describing them as “human animals”, saying there are “no innocents” in Gaza and calling for Gaza’s total destruction and its ethnic cleansing.
However, Haliva’s description of a campaign of mass killing including children was an unusually direct description of collective punishment of civilians, which is illegal under international law.
Haliva, who stepped down from his position in April 2024, also appeared to endorse the casualty figures compiled by health authorities in Gaza, which Israeli officials regularly attack as propaganda. They have proved reliable in past conflicts.
Channel 12 said the undated conversations were recorded “in recent months”. The Gaza health ministry’s toll for those killed by Israeli attacks passed 50,000 in March and has recently climbed above 60,000.
Israel’s most recent published data on the war put the number of militants killed at about 20,000, so Haliva would have been aware that even by his country’s own count most of the Palestinians killed were civilians.
“The fact that there are already 50,000 dead in Gaza is necessary and required for future generations,” he said in the broadcast comments. “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.”
About 1,200 people were killed in the Hamas-led cross-border attacks, the majority of them civilians, and 250 were taken hostage to Gaza.
Channel 12 did not clarify how it had obtained the recordings or who Haliva was speaking with. Israel’s Haaretz newspaper described the recordings as a format that allowed the retired officer to “give an interview … without actually being interviewed”.
Haliva’s comments about mass killings of Palestinian civilians did not make headlines in other mainstream Israeli outlets. They focused instead on his criticism of Benjamin Netanyahu and warnings of systemic failures in security and intelligence.
That coverage highlighted the vast gulf between how the war is perceived and discussed inside Israel’s borders and beyond them.
Among Israelis, Haliva is widely seen as a centrist critic of the current government and its far-right ministers such as Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, as the general himself noted in the broadcast comments.
He quoted an internal critic at the intelligence directorate telling him it was “lucky” that many of those killed and kidnapped on 7 October 2023 were leftwing Israelis linked to peace movements.
“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.”
Emma Graham-Harrison is the Guardian’s chief Middle East correspondent, based in Jerusalem
Quique Kierszenbaum contributed to this report
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‘It doesn’t matter now if they are children’: Ex-IDF chief said 50 Palestinian deaths for every 7 October victim was ‘necessary’
Bryony Gooch
The Independent / August 18, 2025
Aharon Haliva says the Palestinians ‘need a Nakba [catastrophe] every now and then to feel the price’, according to Israeli media.
The former head of military intelligence for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) called the deaths of 50,000 Palestinians in Gaza “necessary and required for future generations”, in leaked audio.
Aharon Haliva can be heard in newly released audio clips saying that for every person who died during 7 October, “50 Palestinians must die, even if they are children”. The audio clips were aired by Israeli broadcaster Channel 12.
“The fact that there are already 50,000 dead in Gaza is necessary and required for future generations. OK, you humiliated, you slaughtered, you murdered, everything is true,” said the former military chief.
It is unclear when the statements were made, but Gaza’s health ministry has recently reported that more than 62,000 Palestinians have been killed since 7 October 2023, when Hamas launched an attack on southern Israel that resulted in the deaths of around 1,200 people.
“The price, I said before the war… For everything that happened on October 7, for every person on October 7, 50 Palestinians must die,” Mr Haliva said in a translation reported by The Jerusalem Post and other media. “It doesn’t matter now if they are children. I’m not speaking out of revenge, I’m speaking out of a message to future generations. They need a Nakba every now and then to feel the price.”
The term “Nakba” means catastrophe in Arabic and is used to describe the expulsion of 700,000 Palestinians from their homeland in 1948 during the creation of the Israeli state.
Mr Haliva was the IDF’s head of military intelligence when the 7 October attack happened. He resigned from his position in April 2024 over his “leadership responsibility”, becoming the first senior IDF officer to do so.
It remains unclear who Mr Haliva was speaking to in the lengthy recordings, as Channel 12 does not identify them. He claims throughout the recordings that the Israeli military is not the only organisation responsible for the failures that led to the attacks. He pointed fingers at Israel’s political leadership and the country’s home security service, Shin Bet, for believing Hamas would not carry out an attack. The Independent has contacted the IDF for comment.
Mr Haliva responded to Channel 12’s reporting by expressing his regret for the recorded conversations: “The leaked recordings were published from things said in a closed forum, and I can only regret that.”
He called the recordings “fragments of partial things, which cannot reflect the full picture – certainly when it comes to complex, detailed issues, most of which are highly classified”.
“The October 7 disaster occurred on my watch as head of the Intelligence Division”, he said, adding: “I bear ultimate responsibility for what happened.”
Bryony Gooch is a general news reporter covering home news and global affairs at The Independent
