Gallant: Netanyahu was afraid to confront Hezbollah because he believed it would destroy Tel Aviv

Dismissed Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said yesterday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was afraid to confront Hezbollah and believed it would lead to the destruction of Tel Aviv.

In an interview with Israel’s Channel 12, Gallant said that he met Netanyahu after the 7 October 2023 infiltration into Israel by Palestinian resistance factions and was told that there were fears that thousands of Israeli occupation soldiers would be killed in Gaza if a ground invasion was approved.

“Netanyahu showed me the buildings in Tel Aviv from the window of his office, and told me, ‘Hezbollah will destroy everything if we hit it’,” Gallant said.

Gallant continued: “The prime minister pointed at the buildings from the window and said to me: Do you see this? All of this will be destroyed by Hezbollah’s capabilities. After we hit them, they will destroy everything you see.”

Regarding the decision to invade the Gaza Strip, Gallant said: “The prime minister told me that we would see thousands of dead in the offensive in Gaza. I told him: We will not see thousands of dead. Besides, what do we have an army for if we do not activate it after they killed 1,000 of our citizens and kidnapped dozens? The struggle to enter the offensive was not easy.”

“Netanyahu’s justification was that Hamas would use the kidnapped as human shields, but I told him: We share only one thing with Hamas, which is that we want to protect the kidnapped,” he added.

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