JERUSALEM: Israel’s opposition leader Yair Lapid on Monday accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government of leading to a “total loss of Israeli deterrence” in the wake of an unprecedented Iranian attack.
In a scathing criticism posted on X, former premier Lapid also said that under Netanyahu, “Jewish terrorist violence” against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank was “out of control.”
Netanyahu, who returned to power in late 2022 at the helm of a coalition with far-right parties, has brought “heaps of destruction from Beeri to Kiryat Shmona,” Lapid said, calling for early elections.
Beeri, a kibbutz community near the Gaza border, came under attack when Hamas militants stormed the area on October 7, triggering the ongoing war, while the northern town of Kiryat Shmona has suffered during months of cross-border fire between Israeli forces and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
Lapid’s remarks came two days after Iran — which backs both Hamas and Hezbollah — launched more than 300 missiles and drones at Israel in retaliation for a deadly strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus.
Israel, the United States and other allies intercepted nearly all launches in the late Saturday aerial attack — the first direct Iranian military action against arch foe Israel.
Netanyahu’s cabinet has weighed Israel’s response to the Iranian attack, but the prime minister has not made any public comments.
In the West Bank, where violence has soared since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, Israeli settlers torched Palestinian homes and cars over the weekend, killing at least two people, after an Israeli teen was “murdered in a suspected terrorist attack,” according to the Israeli military.
Pointing to surging “terrorist” settler attacks, Lapid said: “If we don’t move this government, it will bring destruction upon us.”
The government, which includes hard-line settlers, has prioritized Jewish settlement expansion in the West Bank, occupied by Israel since 1967.
Netanyahu has faced in recent months mass protests over the fate of hostages held in Gaza and pressure from a resurgent anti-government movement.
The prime minister’s Likud party responded to Lapid in a statement stressing Netanyahu’s part in “the global campaign” to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons — which Tehran denies it is seeking.
Netanyahu rival Lapid says Israel lost ‘deterrence’ against Iran
https://arab.news/wrhvq
Netanyahu rival Lapid says Israel lost ‘deterrence’ against Iran
- Opposition leader: ‘Jewish terrorist violence’ against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank ‘out of control’
- ‘If we don’t move this government, it will bring destruction upon us’
Thousands stage pro-Gaza rally in Istanbul
- Thousands joined a New Year’s Day rally for Gaza in Istanbul Thursday, waving Palestinian and Turkish flags and calling for an end to the violence in the tiny war-torn territory
ISTANBUL: Thousands joined a New Year’s Day rally for Gaza in Istanbul Thursday, waving Palestinian and Turkish flags and calling for an end to the violence in the tiny war-torn territory.
Demonstrators gathered in freezing temperatures under cloudless blue skies to march to the city’s Galata Bridge for a rally under the slogan: “We won’t remain silent, we won’t forget Palestine,” an AFP reporter at the scene said.
More than 400 civil society organizations were present at the rally, one of whose organizers was Bilal Erdogan, the youngest son of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Police sources and Anadolou state news agency said some 500,000 people had joined the march at which there were speeches and a performance by Lebanese-born singer Maher Zain of his song “Free Palestine.”
“We are praying that 2026 will bring goodness for our entire nation and for the oppressed Palestinians,” said Erdogan, who chairs the board of the Ilim Yayma Foundation, an educational charity that was one of the organizers of the march.
Turkiye has been one of the most vocal critics of the war in Gaza and helped broker a recent ceasefire that halted the deadly war waged by Israel in response to Hamas’s unprecedented attack on October 7, 2023.
But the fragile October 10 ceasefire has not stopped the violence with more than more than 400 Palestinians killed since it took hold.
