Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hit back at National Unity Party chair Benny Gantz on Tuesday night after the former War Cabinet member, who returned to the opposition in June, accused him of putting political interests above the lives of the hostages held by Hamas.
“Whoever does not contribute to the victory and the return of the hostages would do well not to interfere,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement, responding to Gantz and party colleague Gadi Eizenkot.
“The reality speaks for itself,” the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office stated.
Since Gantz quit the coalition, “Israel eliminated Hamas’s chief of staff and Hezbollah’s chief of staff, attacked the Houthis, captured the Philadelphi Corridor—Hamas’s weapons pipeline—and carried out a pre-emptive strike against Hezbollah, which thwarted its malicious plan and destroyed thousands of rockets aimed at the Galilee,” the PMO said.
Speaking earlier on Tuesday night at an address broadcast from the Kfar Maccabiah Hotel in Ramat Gan, near Tel Aviv, Gantz and Eizenkot claimed that Netanyahu wasn’t telling the truth in public statements on Monday when he vowed to bring the remaining 101 hostages back alive.
“When we sat in the War Cabinet, Netanyahu continually delayed the ability to move forward with the hostage deals, including the first proposal,” charged Gantz. “It didn’t surprise me because Netanyahu is dealing with political survival and is harming strategic relations with the U.S. while Iran is advancing towards nuclear weapons.”
Israelis believe Netanyahu is more capable of managing Jerusalem’s diplomatic relations with the United States than Gantz by a margin of 46% to 34%, according to a JNS/Direct Polls survey carried out on July 9.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has confirmed that Netanyahu accepted Biden’s May 31 ceasefire-for-hostages outline, as well as last month’s so-called “bridging proposal” presented by the United States.
“In a very constructive meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu today, he confirmed to me that Israel accepts the bridging proposal, that he supports it,” the diplomat told reporters after meetings in Jerusalem on Aug. 19, adding that “it’s now incumbent on Hamas to do the same.”
Hamas formally rejected the bridging proposal on Aug. 18, accusing the government in Jerusalem of “setting new conditions and demands with the aim of thwarting the mediators’ efforts and prolonging the war.”
Gantz announced in early June his party’s departure from the government set up in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre and the ensuing Gaza war. The National Unity Party leader and his No. 2 man, Eizenkot, had served as ministers without portfolio in the War Cabinet.
Before leaving the unity government, Gantz’s party submitted a bill to dissolve the Knesset in a move to topple Netanyahu’s government.
Gantz also declared that Israel should agree to withdraw from the Gaza Strip as part of a long-term truce deal with Hamas. “I want the hostages to return home,” he told Israel’s Channel 12 News. “If there is a change in the fighting and our hostages are returned, and we do what needs to be done in the Gaza Strip in a year, or in two years, that’s not an issue.”
