A dispute lingers within the IDF about the legality of the current invasion of Gaza City, especially regarding whether sufficient humanitarian measures are in place to account for the needs of evacuating 1 million Palestinian civilians.
The Jerusalem Post has learned that there were recently two key meetings of top IDF officials on the issue.
The meetings came after IDF Military Advocate-General Maj.-Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi warned that COGAT must present a certain, specific level of data to show that the humanitarian needs of the evacuating Palestinians would be addressed before the invasion could start.
In one meeting, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir met with IDF Southern Command Chief Maj.-Gen. Yaron Finkelman and COGAT Chief Maj.-Gen. Rasan Elian to decide to go forward with the invasion.
Tomer-Yerushalmi was not included in this meeting.
On that basis, some have claimed that Zamir completely ignored the MAG’s legal advice on the humanitarian issue.
However, the Post has learned that following that meeting, Zamir held an additional meeting with Tomer-Yerushalmi discussing the same issue, during which all of the relevant humanitarian data was presented.
This leaves open the narrative that Zamir has the MAG’s full support and consulted with her in full, though no explanation was given about why she was not present for the earlier meeting.
The IDF Spokesperson’s Unit issued a statement calling the allegations, initially made in a Haaretz report, baldly false.
IDF pushes back against consensus claims, says legal standards accounted for
Further, the spokesperson’s statement said that all legal issues were taken into account and that no evacuation orders were issued until the legal standards set by the MAG were met.
The Post understands that international law and the safety of Palestinian civilians are important to Zamir. In fact, they are some of the reasons he himself opposed the invasion of Gaza City during cabinet debates, although his opposition also related to the safety of Israeli hostages.
However, since Zamir and Asur took up their posts in March, there has been a spike in large-scale mistakes leading to larger groups of Palestinians being killed, even in comparison to during the term of their predecessors (though Israeli critics have accused the Jewish state of alleged war crimes dating back to the start of the war).