More than 600 retired Israeli security officials including three former Mossad directors (Tamir Pardo, Efraim Halevy, Danny Yatom), five former heads of Shin Bet led by Ami Ayalon, and other senior IDF figures, have signed an open letter urging U.S. President Donald Trump to pressure Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to halt the Gaza war immediately. The letter, circulated publicly on August 4, was released under the banner of the Commanders for Israel’s Security (CIS) movement and marks one of the most sweeping condemnations of Israel’s Gaza strategy from insiders to date.
“It is our professional judgement that Hamas no longer poses a strategic threat to Israel,” the officials wrote in their joint appeal, adding that “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.” Ayalon warned in an accompanying video that continuation of military operations is “leading the State of Israel to lose its security and identity.”
The letter insists Israel’s remaining goals chiefly securing the release of approximately 50 hostages still held in Gaza can only be resolved through diplomacy, not further force. “The third, and most important, can only be achieved through a deal: bringing all the hostages home.”
In a pointed appeal to the former U.S. president, the ex-officials say: “Your credibility with the vast majority of Israelis augments your ability to steer Prime Minister Netanyahu … End the war, return the hostages, stop the suffering.” They added: “You did it in Lebanon. Time to do it in Gaza as well.”
Their intervention comes amid mounting humanitarian alarm in Gaza, where the Health Ministry reports over 60,000 dead, acute malnutrition, and famine-like conditions, and within Israel, where protests over the war and internal dissent in reserve ranks have intensified. At the same time, hardline ministers in Netanyahu’s coalition push for expanding the ground operation, raising fears of further escalation.
