Israel's Ehud Olmert on mission to topple Benjamin Netanyahu

Former PM tells The National that most people killed by Israel in Gaza are not Hamas fighters

Former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert says he is on a mission to help topple Benjamin Netanyahu because of the way he is handling the war in Gaza.

“I totally disagree with him and I think [the war] should be stopped,” Mr Olmert told The National.

He said he is trying to build momentum before legislative elections next year, and will do “everything in my power” to ensure that Mr Netanyahu does not survive them.

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“I hope we'll be successful in overthrowing him,” Mr Olmert said.

The former Israeli leader, who led the government from 2006 to 2009, said at first he was in favour of the war but grew increasingly wary of the way it was going. He says his qualms date to January last year, when he believes Israel should have reduced its military presence in Gaza.

He said growing concerns and opposition within Israel, including from former officials and experts, should be heard, referring to polls that show at least 70 per cent of Israelis calling for an end to the war and return of the hostages.

“What else can we do that we haven't done until now to justify the war?” Mr Olmert said.

Israel has so far killed at least 62,819 Palestinians and injured 158,629 more since the war began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas killed about 1,200 civilians and captured 250 hostages in an attack on Israel.

Under Mr Olmert's leadership, Israel launched a 22-day offensive in Gaza in late 2008, in which about 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were reportedly killed. He said it was a response to rocket fire from the enclave but admitted at the time that "civilians were also hit" during what was known as Operation Cast Lead.

Two years earlier, Mr Olmert was also the Israeli Prime Minister when the army launched a war in Gaza in 2006, after militants captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in a cross-border raid. Israel launched “Operation Summer Rains,” a campaign of airstrikes, artillery fire, and incursions, killing around 500 Palestinians, including militants.

The war quickly expanded beyond its stated objectives, with Gaza’s infrastructure, including its only power plant, heavily targeted, plunging the territory into a humanitarian crisis. The conflict dragged on through the summer, overlapping with a devastating war with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

While Israeli officials often seek to discredit the Palestinian death toll during the present war by saying it comes from Hamas, Mr Olmert acknowledged that the majority of those killed were civilians.

Families of Israeli hostages organised a protest outside the Defence Ministry headquarters in Tel Aviv at the weekend. AFP

“I guess 20 per cent of them or maybe more were Hamas fighters and deserved to be killed … but so many of them are not and became a victim of this terrible war, which started because of Hamas.”

Israel's Cabinet last month approved the reoccupation of Gaza city, when its troops controlled at least 76 per cent of the strip. The decision would involve displacing one million people – half of Gaza's population – to the already overcrowded south. The UN said that at least 42,000 people live in every square kilometre in southern Gaza's Al Mawasi.

The UN last week also declared a famine in Gaza, which is already under way in Gaza city and forecast to reach southern Khan Younis and central Deir Al Balah by the end of September. Israel's use of starvation as warfare has already killed 303 people including 117 children, the UN and local health authorities have said.

Mr Olmert said he did not read the UN report but admitted to shortcomings in Israel's supervision of aid, which it has been directing through the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation since the end of May.

Palestinians struggle to receive donated food at a community kitchen in Gaza city. AP Photo

The organisation has been described as a “death trap” by critics and aid campaigners because of the nearly 900 people who have been killed in its vicinity while trying to collect food. Israel claims it has resorted to this method of aid distribution, in co-operation with the US, to prevent Hamas from controlling supplies.

Mr Olmert said it is incumbent upon Israel, as the force in control of Gaza, to ensure that the Palestinians receive all the aid they require. “We have the power, we have the authority, we have the control and we need to do it and we should do it. No excuse can be made by Israel for not doing it.”

He said the same army that was able to “successfully strike Iran” thousands of kilometres away, during a 12-day war in June, could figure out the logistics of delivering aid to people on Israel's border without Hamas benefiting from it.

Palestinian statehood

Mr Olmert's voice has been one of many criticising Mr Netanyahu's government over its policies in Gaza. The growing opposition has included many of Israel's usual allies such as the UK, France and Canada, who have all said they are willing to recognise Palestine as a state during a UN conference in September. Israel has denounced their plans.

Mr Olmert is somewhere in between. A proponent of the two-state solution, which he backed once again in a document he drew up last year with former Palestinian foreign minister Nasser Al Qudwa, he says he is “not certain” that is it the right time for such a declaration.

Instead, Mr Olmert believes the momentum that has been built by the Europeans can be utilised to “force” the Palestinian and Israeli leaderships to embark on negotiations to eventually create a Palestinian state.

While Mr Netanyahu remains resistant to any and all pressure both internally and externally to end the war in Gaza, Mr Olmert says one man is capable of stopping him: US President Donald Trump.

“If Trump wants to be the man of peace, he has to use his power of persuasion to say 'enough is enough' … he has the means, and he needs to have the desire to do it and I hope he does it sooner than later.”