The former head of Israel's military intelligence, who resigned last year for failing to prevent the 7 October attacks, said Palestinians need to face a Nakba "every now and then" and that the spiralling death toll in Gaza is "necessary".
"The fact that there are already 50,000 dead in Gaza is necessary and required for future generations," Aharon Haliva said in audio recordings broadcast on Ulpan Shishi, a TV programme which aired on Israel's Channel 12 on Friday.
Channel 12 did not date the recordings, but the death toll from Israel's genocide in the Palestinian enclave reached 50,o00 in March. It has now passed 61,890, according to the health ministry in Gaza.
Speaking on the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel in 2023, Haliva said: “for each one (victim) on 7 October, 50 Palestinians have to die".
"There's no choice, they need a Nakba every now and then to feel the consequences," he said, referring to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine by Zionist militias to make way for the creation of Israel in 1948.
"I'm not saying this out of revenge, but as a message for future generations," he added, calling Gaza a “disturbed neighbourhood".It's unclear how many Israelis were killed by Hamas-led fighters on 7 October, but according to the Israeli military at least 1,195 people died on that day.
According to Haaretz, Israel's newspaper of record, that day, the Israeli military widely employed the Hannibal directive, which mandates that the army use any means necessary to prevent the capture of Israeli soldiers, even if it involves killing them.