Israeli cabinet attacks Netanyahu over 'weak' Gaza campaign

Israeli cabinet ministers and opposition leaders severely criticised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accusing him of not having an exit plan from the ongoing war on Gaza and saying that Hamas is the one controlling the current situation.

The Jerusalem Post newspaper reported on Wednesday that Netanyahu rebuked the ministers in his cabinet, including Economy Minister Naftali Bennett, for delivering remarks opposing him and his Defence Minister Moshe Ya’alon.

“My advice is to do what I did: Lend a hand and speak less,” Netanyahu said.

During a press conference, Netanyahu also pledged to form a regional axis against the Palestinian resistance fighters in Gaza. “There are dramatic regional changes in the region and not all of them are negative,” he said. “The aim is to form a new political horizon.”

He said the world is standing against Qatar, Turkey and Iran. At the same time, he said that Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Palestinian Authority and other Gulf States are “moderate” and would join the Israeli axis against the Palestinian resistance.

In the cabinet meeting following Netanyahu’s remarks, Bennett, who is also the chairman of the Jewish Home Party, asked Netanyahu to pledge that the government would not talk with Hamas in the future. Netanyahu refused and rebuked Bennett for being publicly critical of his policies, noting that this harms Israel. Israeli media reported that ministers became angry and anxious after Netanyahu scolded his opponents.

Following the meeting, Bennett issued a statement saying that his position “was not changed”. He continued: “I think that talks must not be held with a terrorist organisation, period.”

Haaretz newspaper reported that head of the Labour Party Isaac Herzog criticised Netanyahu for not giving any redress to the plight of Israeli citizens, particularly residents of the south. “We’ve seen a prime minister who’s more concerned with his shaky relationships with his cabinet members than with giving solutions to the Israeli public. There’s no horizon in his statements or hope of an accord, and he said nothing new,” Herzog said.

Meanwhile, Meretz chaiperson Zahava Gal-On struck back at Netanyahu’s critics, slamming Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman for waging a campaign to “liquidate” Hamas.

The Jerusalem Post reported that, “Gal-On’s office issued a press release in response to Lieberman’s post, calling the foreign minister’s claims ‘infantile’.”

She said: “Whoever calls for a more massive response and more assassinations in order to create deterrence and achieve a victory apparently has not learned the bloody lessons of the last month, during which 64 soldiers were killed on the Israeli side and 2,000 Palestinians were killed.”