Some Israeli officers are contemplating paying compensation in a small variety of high-profile instances during which Palestinians had been killed throughout the warfare, The Jerusalem Publish has discovered.
The thought has many similarities to Israel’s compensation cope with Turkey after the 2010 Mavi Marmara flotilla incident.
One of many objectives could be to free Israel from the lure it has been in with its critics within the type of a black-and-white warfare crimes debate which posed a false alternative: Is Israel all evil or all good? One other purpose could be to spice up Israeli legitimacy globally, which has taken an enormous hit.
A controversial means out of the black-and-white debate, which the Publish understands is supported by quite a lot of former and present prime Israeli authorized officers, with a lot of authorized precedent, and which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has used earlier than with Turkey, known as “ex gratia.”
Earlier than discussing “ex gratia” intimately, the Netanyahu-Turkey narrative in some methods tells the story greatest.
Israel’s ‘Mavi Marmara’ incident with Turkey
In Might 2010, a flotilla of small naval ships, together with the Mavi Marmara crewed by numerous Turkish residents, made its means into the Israeli-Gazan maritime zone the place the IDF was imposing (and nonetheless enforces) a blockade of Hamas.
The purpose of the flotilla was to interrupt Israel’s naval blockade.
Flotilla ships ignored Israel Navy warnings to show again, and finally naval forces began to board the ships with the intention of taking management in a nonviolent vogue in order to have the ability to deliver them to shore at Israeli ports.
Nevertheless, the operation to take management of the Mavi Marmara was clumsily deliberate, together with poor intelligence assortment about a few of the activists onboard who, intelligence failed to notice, had been ready to withstand IDF troops violently.
A few of the Turkish activists onboard used crowbars to assault and beat Israeli troopers as they sought to board, critically wounding some.
Appearing in self-defense, however with out having been fastidiously coached about the potential of hand-to-hand fight with activists who had crow bars however not weapons, the troopers opened fireplace, killing 9 Turkish residents.
Israel contended that the troopers had been inside their self-defense rights, however nonetheless regretted the outcome. It had by no means needed to kill Turkish residents on the boat, and a technique Israel finally patched up its relations with Turkey afterward (no less than for a couple of years) was by making an ex gratia fee of $20 million as a present of goodwill and of regretting the lack of life.
“Ex gratia” means “by favor” or “out of grace.” The closest translation in Hebrew is “lifnim mishurat hadin.”
When an motion or fee is finished or made ex gratia, it’s carried out voluntarily, out of kindness or grace, and any fee given is made with out the giver acknowledging any legal responsibility.
Crucially, “ex gratia” has nothing to say about ethical equivalence. It’s irrelevant that Hamas is not going to make reparations for the 1,200 individuals it massacred on October 7. The one query is whether or not it may be mentioned to be a proper factor to do and whether or not it’s in Israel’s pursuits.
Why would Israel think about this?
Former and present prime authorized officers have mentioned that typically acknowledging that Israel just isn’t good and admitting particular flaws will help the Jewish state’s picture.
The world has been inundated with the struggling of Gazans, and ceaselessly evidently the world thinks that Israel doesn’t care or is at most ambivalent, even when it facilitates third events offering humanitarian help. There are in all probability even a sure variety of Israelis who consider the Gazans “deserved it,” whether or not formally Hamas or not. However not caring in regards to the struggling of harmless Palestinians, other than the ethical quandary, could make Israel seem much less sympathetic even within the eyes of these within the West who typically assist the Jewish state.
Israel’s legitimacy technique
The idea and broader technique right here, by way of Israel’s pursuits, is focusing in on fair-minded individuals as a substitute of hardline Israeli critics to attempt to restore the nation’s international legitimacy.
Hardline Israeli critics in all probability is not going to cease going after Israelis, and in lots of instances non-Israeli Jews, it doesn’t matter what Israel does. However there are fair-minded Individuals, Europeans, Canadians, Japanese, and others who wish to be on the Jewish state’s facet if it lastly provides them an trustworthy motive and accounting, together with some form of a reckoning.
Convincing fair-minded individuals to stay on Israel’s facet isn’t just an train in reality and in public relations, however is prone to have very giant sensible implications.
For instance, the Democratic Social gathering will doubtless win again one or each homes of the US Congress within the November 2026 midterm elections, and there’s a sturdy probability additionally for Democrats within the 2028 elections primarily based on previous historical past of the fixed cyclical vacillation of American political energy between the 2 principal events.
Israel has misplaced assist amongst each Democrats and Republicans throughout the warfare, however with Democrats it’d already be at or close to a important tipping level the place it may flip get together leaders towards Jerusalem in bigger methods, one thing which, till the warfare, was restricted to a small group of radicals.
There are 9 months till the midterms and fewer than three years till the subsequent presidential election for the Jewish state to start out attempting to win again Israel as a bipartisan trigger.
How will that work given that just about all Israelis, from Proper to Heart to many of the Left, don’t consider Israel as a complete dedicated warfare crimes (even when some rank-and-file people may need, no less than one in all whom has already been convicted of beating a detainee), whereas even many fair-minded Individuals have doubts?
In response to many former and present Israeli authorized officers, “ex gratia” could be the reply.
To make certain, profitable again legitimacy with parts of the US, Europe, and elsewhere is much from the one menace Israel faces.
At this second, the Iranian ballistic missile menace is by far probably the most harmful.
However after that menace, the potential of shedding US, European, and different assist on a long-term foundation is probably going a bigger menace than even the threats that Hezbollah and Hamas at present pose to Israel, at the same time as these teams nonetheless do pose threats.
Legitimacy can be essential for Israel’s financial system. America could or could not have the ability to thrive in a world of larger protectionism and tariffs, however Israel will unquestionably take an enormous financial hit if it doesn’t restore its model.
Israel’s resolution to delay disclosing its narrative makes this transfer much more urgent
There might be different methods for Israel to take some hits to win again a few of its legitimacy. A part of that may contain speeding out its lengthy overdue counternarrative on the various warfare crimes allegations it faces and which have been reported advert nauseam throughout the globe.
Nevertheless, The Jerusalem Publish just lately revealed that this isn’t within the playing cards, because the Israeli political and authorized institutions are, for now, holding again a lot of their details about these high-profile incidents out of concern that the Worldwide Courtroom of Justice (ICJ) and Worldwide Felony Courtroom will abuse the data towards Israel for biased anti-Israel political functions.
In reality, the Publish disclosed that the IDF has closed dozens of alleged warfare crimes instances arising from the 2023-2024 interval of the warfare, whereas selecting to maintain the small print below wraps for an indefinite interval.
These instances are a part of the round 100 legal probes which the IDF authorized division has opened into its personal troopers’ conduct.
That 100 quantity is simply a drop within the pond of the as much as 3,000 whole preliminary evaluations of alleged warfare crimes.
Sadly, since August 2024, the IDF has not offered an up to date breakdown between which preliminary evaluation instances have been referred for potential legal consideration by the IDF authorized division versus which turned full legal instances versus which instances leapfrogged previous the operational evaluation stage instantly into being legal probes.
Concerning the ICJ, the Publish has discovered that Israel’s response, due March 12, to South Africa’s genocide claims towards it are within the strategy of being detailed by an roughly 1,000-page authorized transient, with one other 4,000 plus pages of reveals.
This is without doubt one of the largest, if not the biggest worldwide legislation and warfare authorized protection doc Israel has ever produced, although the fees being confronted relate solely to 2023-2024.
South Africa has not but given an in depth assault on the IDF’s conduct in 2025. It’s anticipated that South Africa will file an replace in spring-summer 2026, to which Israel will doubtless want to reply by spring 2027.
Sources have indicated to the Publish that this implies Israel could determine to carry again a lot of this data till no less than mid-2026, if not mid-2027.
That’s simply too gradual to salvage Israel’s legitimacy, in accordance with some former and present Israeli authorized officers.
Within the absence of Israel making its case correctly to the world, the least it will possibly do, if not from an moral perspective then no less than from a strategic perspective, is to indicate compassion and recognition of Palestinian struggling in a concrete means.
As soon as once more, such recognition under no circumstances makes a comparability or any ethical equivalence between Hamas’s purposeful mass bloodbath and Israel’s try and topple Hamas whereas attempting to restrict civilian hurt in an unattainable battle zone of Hamas human shields.
Why is Israel recognizing Palestinian struggling now?
Now could be the time to make this ex gratia transfer, in accordance with many officers, as a result of the warfare ended round 4 months in the past; as a result of Section II of the Trump administration ceasefire and Gaza’s future has began; and since the entire hostages are lastly again, as of January 26.
Additionally, as talked about above, the clock is ticking for Israel to make progress on rehabilitating its status; and sooner or later, lengthy earlier than Israel will share its full narrative, the story of Israel’s function on this warfare will already be set.
An fascinating query is whether or not the ex gratia transfer may have been made earlier.
Whereas perhaps it may have, tracing how far Israel has come since October 7 additionally explains extra about why now could be the fitting time.
Instantly after October 7, Israelis wanted to consider bodily navy security first, and virtually nothing else would have registered.
Greater than two years later, Israeli navy safety continues to be the primary precedence, and the IDF’s navy doctrine has developed to be much more aggressive in assembly enemies of their territory versus letting them get anyplace close to Israeli territory.
However greater than two years later, Israel wants and needs to rejoin the broader world with all of its imperfections.
There is no such thing as a contradiction between Israelis’ inside sense of catastrophic loss from October 7, 2023, and being strategic in regards to the Jewish state’s place on the planet in 2026.
If, in 2023, such a gesture may need been a reward to Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif, Ismail Haniyeh, and different members of Hamas and firm, it definitely just isn’t a reward to them immediately.
For one factor, Sinwar, Deif, Haniyeh, nearly all of Hamas’s different first- and second-string leaders, and a grand whole of near 25,000 of its fighters are all useless.
As well as, practically all of Hamas’s heavy weaponry has been destroyed, and it’ll take years to rebuild Gaza – Hamas and Gazans know they misplaced!
True, Hamas just isn’t disarmed and possibly gained’t disarm. However Israeli legitimacy can not anticipate the approaching of the Messiah both.
So if at earlier phases of this warfare, it may need been too quickly to make ex gratia funds, now Israel is at some extent the place it has achieved a lot of its objectives and bludgeoned Hamas so considerably that nobody will mistake it for a Gazan victory.
The moral case of Israel’s funds to Palestinian victims
The moral case for the ex gratia funds is pretty easy.
Whereas the “70,000 Gazans killed” quantity could also be exaggerated, the Publish and different Hebrew media reported in late January that members of the IDF excessive command don’t suppose the quantity is much off.
Israel argues that round 25,000-30,000 of these killed had been Hamas or Palestinians killed by Palestinians, reminiscent of by rocket misfires or abstract executions of opposition figures.
That also leaves someplace between 40,000 and 45,000 harmless civilians killed by accident by Israel’s counterinvasion and two-year slog with Hamas.
Between 70% and 80% of Gaza’s buildings had been destroyed, typically to focus on Hamas terrorists, however typically simply to cut back the chance of a Hamas ambush on IDF troopers.
Israel can accuse Hamas of atrocities, of utilizing the Gaza Strip as one massive human defend; it will possibly justify destroying buildings for power safety, and might view all or most of its main actions as vital, whereas nonetheless recognizing that the IDF’s killing huge numbers of Gazans and destroying a lot of the Strip precipitated monumental struggling to harmless Gazans.
Recognizing this struggling, whereas rejecting the warfare crimes label, is the essence of ex gratia, present and former officers say.
The precedent of Netanyahu paying ex gratia to Turkey for the 2010 ‘Mavi Marmara’ casualties and different precedents
In 2016, Netanyahu licensed a fee of $20m. to Turkey regarding 9 Turkish residents being killed by the IDF throughout the Mavi Marmara incident.
This was regardless of Israel’s place that it had acted legally, together with with assist from the UN Palmer Report for a lot of of its authorized arguments.
The fee mirrored that Israel had come a great distance towards Turkey from its authentic place of $0 to $100,000 per individual to thousands and thousands per individual for the 9 Turkish individuals killed within the incident.
To say that Israel bowed to Turkish claims of precedent could be to disregard the wild and nearly unbounded world of ex gratia funds.
Many instances, ex gratia funds are paid to advertise nationwide pursuits, like preserving worldwide vacationers’ security or sustaining relations – or mitigating the injury to relations – with an essential international nation.
In different instances, nations made ex gratia funds to retrieve hostages or finish diplomatic isolation and rejoin the worldwide neighborhood.
In 1968, Israel paid $3,323,500 to the households of the 34 useless crewmen of the USS Liberty, following a 1967 incident during which Israeli plane and motor torpedo boats attacked the US Navy ship in error.
Then, in 1988, the US paid Iran $61.8m. for the households of 290 useless passengers on Iran Air Flight 655, a civilian airliner, after the USS Vincennes that very same yr shot down the airliner in error below suspicion that it was a navy plane.
The breakdown this time involves round $213,000 per individual, although doubtless a lot bigger with inflation.
Beginning in 2002, Libya paid no less than $2.16 billion to the households of 270 useless passengers on Pan Am Flight 103, referred to as the Lockerbie bombing, after the airplane was blown up in midair, allegedly by Libyan brokers in 1988.
In each the Lockerbie case and in a separate case during which Iraq was presupposed to pay $27m. to the US over a 1987 incident, intervening new incidents within the center ended up inflicting a halt to the funds, which had no authorized enforceability.
There are numerous different examples of the US compensating households in Iraq, Afghanistan, and different locations, whereas Israel has compensated the Palestinians, the UN, and nondemocratic nations like China have compensated rivals like England.
Slightly, the soar in funds to Turkey by Netanyahu and Israel got here as a result of Jerusalem needed a deal extra. This was probably to regain Turkish cooperation on numerous fronts and to get the Turkish case towards its prime navy commanders throughout the Marmara incident to vanish.
Legitimacy with the US, Europe, and others is much extra essential.
Which instances will Israel pay for?
If Israel paid ex gratia funds, it might not be for each incident throughout the warfare, say present and former officers.
Slightly, Israel would doubtless choose a sequence of high-profile incidents for which it might make funds.
These incidents would possibly embody the World Central Kitchen (April 2024, when seven help staff had been mistakenly killed); the Islamic Purple Crescent (March 2025, when as much as 15 help staff had been mistakenly killed); a number of incidents of mass (as many as 69 and as many as 125, in two completely different incidents) mistaken Palestinian deaths in Jabalya from 2023; an incident during which a number of Reuters reporters had been killed in Lebanon in 2023; a few of the Gaza Humanitarian Basis (GHF)-related incidents in 2025 (when some dozens of Palestinians had been mistakenly killed going to obtain, or after receiving, meals help); and a few incidents during which youngsters died attributable to typically poor warfare situations.
Compensation could be given solely in instances the place Israeli indictments aren’t filed towards Israeli troopers; as in instances the place troopers are indicted, the legal enforcement would function the signal of Israel’s recognition of Palestinian struggling.
This is not going to be a silver bullet. What Israel has achieved in Gaza, nonetheless defensible it is likely to be, can have long-lasting penalties for the nation’s status. Antisemites will hate Israel and Jews it doesn’t matter what. Some fair-minded individuals will be unable to get previous the final two years of photos and the 70,000 variety of Gazans killed, and won’t be prepared to investigate the breakdown of combatants to innocents or different complicated points.
However some will begin to be extra open to Israel’s story and to listening to the context. Some could begin to “forgive” Israel merely due to the humanizing gesture, with out even moving into the small print.
Some prime Israeli authorized officers have prompt going even additional and making some form of substantial, if nonetheless comparatively modest in absolute phrases, contribution to Gaza’s rehabilitation. A flood of stories, which the IDF and the federal government notably repeatedly didn’t deny, has prompt that Israel, instantly or not directly, paid for features of organising the GHF to supply meals help to the Palestinians in 2025. Nonetheless, it’s unlikely that such an thought can be acceptable politically inside Israel within the instant coming years (Netanyahu rejected paying into the Board of Peace pool of funds for Gaza reconstruction). Additionally, Israel’s authorities will doubtless have to strategically determine that it needs to be perceived in a constructive gentle by extra of the world, guaranteeing that its actions and the actions of its ministers are a part of such a coherent technique.
So ex gratia funds is not going to clear up Israel’s legitimacy issues. However many good Israeli authorized minds suppose it might be a begin.
