Israeli Environmental Protection Minister Idit Silman hit back at former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on Sunday after her former political partner claimed that she prevented the targeted killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and other top terrorists by resigning from his government in April 2022.
“No regret, no apology to the voters he deceived—only blind arrogance and burning envy of [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s historic achievements,” Silman wrote on X following Bennett’s first interview with Hebrew media since he left politics following the dissolution in 2022 of the government he led together with Yair Lapid.
“Nothing he said is true: This is the man who subordinated the State of Israel to the Shura Council,” she wrote, referencing the top body of the Islamist Ra’am Party, aka the United Arab List, which was part of the Bennett-Lapid coalition.
“This man formed a government relying on the votes of Ra’am, which, when the day came, accused Israel of war crimes,” continued Silman. “And he still dares to claim he would have eliminated Sinwar?!”
Noting that Ra’am almost moved to collapse the governing coalition over a Jewish National Fund tree-planting event in the Negev Desert, the minister expressed skepticism at Bennett’s claims he would have attacked in Gaza or Iran.
Silman also noted that the government remained in office for nine more months after she resigned as coalition whip. “Why didn’t it attack then?”
Sinwar, who was killed by the IDF in October, is widely believed to have masterminded Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack, in which terrorists murdered some 1,200 people and wounded thousands while raping, torturing, burning and mutilating their victims. Terrorists also took more than 250 hostages back to Gaza, 49 of whom remain there.
“All his talk of ‘unity’—it’s a ridiculous mask,” Silman said of Bennett in her Sunday post. “Someone who declares he will boycott a government led by Netanyahu, but who sat with terror supporters, reveals his true face.
“I had the honor to bring down the leftist-Arab government, saving the State of Israel from the dangerous hands that were leading it to ruin,” said Silman, who was offered a spot on the Knesset candidates list of Netanyahu’s Likud Party and a ministerial position after leaving Bennett’s coalition.
Bennett, who is seeking reelection with his Bennett 2026 party, told Channel 12‘s “Meet the Press” program on Saturday that a plan to “decapitate” the entire Hamas leadership was shelved after Silman “brought down the government.
“I admit—the reason wasn’t because I foresaw Oct. 7,” Bennett said of the massacre. “I had another reason. … Why did we set the process in motion? We received indications of a multi-front campaign. I was very concerned about something that ultimately didn’t materialize—that something on the Temple Mount would ignite the entire region.”
The former prime minister in the interview also claimed as his successes Netanyahu’s military campaign against Iran, saying the longtime leader did not invest funds in preparing for the recent war, and for the name “Operation Rising Lion,” which Bennett said he coined on Oct. 8, 2023.
Ayelet Shaked, Bennett’s longtime political ally and the interior minister in his government, was reported as meeting on Sunday with Yisrael Beiteinu’s Avigdor Liberman, who was Bennett’s finance minister.
According to Israel’s Kan News public broadcaster, Shaked has been pushing for opposition parties to join forces ahead of the next election. While Shaked was not named among the founders of Bennett’s new party when it was registered, she is widely expected to join it.