• Say conflict is leading Israel to ‘lose its security, identity’
• Aid seekers among 19 more killed over 24 hours

JERUSALEM: More than 600 retired Israeli security officials have urged US President Donald Trump to pressure their own government to end the war in Gaza.

“It is our professional judgement that Hamas no longer poses a strategic threat to Israel,” the former officials wrote in an open letter shared with the media on Monday, calling on Trump to “steer” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decisions.

“At first this war was a just war, a defensive war, but when we achieved all military objectives, this war ceased to be a just war,” said Ami Ayalon, former director of the Shin Bet security service.

The war, nearing its 23rd month, “is leading the State of Israel to lose its security and identity,” Ayalon warned in a video released to accompany the letter.

The letter was signed by three former Mossad heads: Tamir Pardo, Efraim Halevy and Danny Yatom.

Other signatories include five former heads of Shin Bet — Ayalon as well as Nadav Argaman, Yoram Cohen, Yaakov Peri and Carmi Gilon — and three former military chiefs of staff, including former prime minister Ehud Barak, former defence minister Moshe Yaalon and Dan Halutz.

The letter argued that the Israeli military “has long accomplished the two objectives that could be achieved by force: dismantling Hamas’s military formations and governance.”

It added that the third, and most important, could only be achieved through a deal: bringing all the Israeli prisoners home.

In the letter, the former officials tell Trump that he has credibility with the majority of Israelis and can put pressure on Netanyahu to end the war and return the prisoners.

In recent weeks Israel has come under increasing international pressure to agree to a ceasefire that could free Israeli prisoners and allow UN agencies to distribute humanitarian aid.

But some in Israel, including ministers in Netanyahu’s coalition government, are instead pushing for Israeli forces to push on and for Gaza to be occupied in whole or in part.

Israel’s war goals

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Netanyahu promised on Monday to update Israel’s Gaza war plan, a day before a UN Security Council meeting on the fate of prisoners still held in the Palestinian territory.

Addressing a cabinet meeting nearly 22 months into the war, the Israeli leader told ministers that later in the week he would instruct the military on how “to achieve the three war objectives we have set”.

Israel — backed by the United States and Panama — is preparing to convene a UN Security Council meeting on Tuesday to highlight the fate of the prisoners.

At the weekly cabinet meeting, Netanyahu reiterated that Israel’s three war goals remain “the defeat of the enemy”, the release of prisoners and the “promise that Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel”.

The UN session was called after Palestinian groups published last week three videos showing prisoners Rom Braslavski and Evyatar David appearing weak and emaciated.

Netanyahu said he had asked the International Committee of the Red Cross to provide food and medical treatment to the Israeli prisoners.

Hamas has said it was willing to allow access to the prisoners in exchange for opening aid corridors into all of Gaza.

‘We are starving’

Israel’s assault in Gaza has killed at least 60,933 people, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, which are deemed reliable by the UN.

Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli fire on Monday killed at least 19 Palestinians, including nine who were waiting to collect food aid from a site in central Gaza.

In Gaza City, Umm Osama Imad was mourning a relative she said was killed while trying to reach an aid distribution point.

“We are starving… He went to bring flour for his family,” she said. “The flour is stained with blood. We don’t want the flour anymore. Enough!”

Further south, in Deir el-Balah, Abdullah Abu Musa told AFP his daughter and her family were killed in an Israeli strike.

Published in Dawn, August 5th, 2025