Netanyahu 'not qualified to lead' Israel: Opposition leader

Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, “is not qualified to lead the country”, opposition leader, Yair Lapid, said Monday, Anadolu Agency reports.

In a statement on X, Lapid urged Israeli opposition lawmakers, including former Defence Minister, Benny Gantz, a member of Israel’s current war council, to leave the ruling coalition.

“This is not a unity government; this is not an emergency government. They are not saving the State of Israel, they are saving Netanyahu,” Lapid added.

The opposition leader said the 24 lawmakers of his Yesh Atid [There is Future] Party will support any move to change the current Israeli government.

Calls have grown for holding fresh elections in Israel amid criticism of Netanyahu over his failure to acknowledge responsibility for a cross-border attack by Hamas on 7 October.

Opinion polls conducted by Israeli media in the past few days suggested that, if early elections were held now, Netanyahu would be unable to form a government, while Gantz is considered the most likely to succeed.

Israel has launched air and ground attacks on the Gaza Strip since 7 October, killing at least 23,084 Palestinians and injuring 58,926 others, according to Gaza’s health authorities, while nearly 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the Hamas attack.

However, since then, it has been revealed by Haaretz that helicopters and tanks of the Israeli army had, in fact, killed many of the 1,139 soldiers and civilians claimed by Israel to have been killed by the Palestinian Resistance.

The Israeli onslaught has left Gaza in ruins, with 60 per cent of the enclave’s infrastructure damaged or destroyed, and nearly 2 million residents displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicines.

READ: Israel’s costliest war has achieved nothing, local media reports