Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing scrutiny from current and former members of the Israeli government due to his handling of the war in Gaza.
War Cabinet minister Gadi Eisenkot seemingly criticized Netanyahu and others within the government on Thursday, saying that officials who claim Hamas was fully defeated in northern Gaza “are not telling the truth.”
“Those who say that there was a major blow and demolition of the capabilities in the north of the strip are telling the truth. Those who say that there was an absolute defeat [of Hamas] and lack of will and ability, are not telling the truth,” Eisenkot told Israeli television news. “A strategic achievement was not reached. Partially reached. We did not demolish the Hamas organization.”
Eisenkot also called for elections to take place “in the next few months,” though he noted, “lack of trust among the public in its government is no less severe than lack of unity during a war.”
“The state of Israel is a democracy and needs to ask itself, after such a serious event, how do we go forward with a leadership that is responsible for such an absolute failure?” he said.
His comments came hours after Netanyahu affirmed Israel’s military would not cease operations in Gaza until it achieved a “complete victory.”
Netanyahu also declared in the press conference that he did not support a pathway for Palestinian statehood after the conclusion of the war. The sentiment stands in sharp contrast with the position taken by the Biden administration, which has said Israel can only achieve long-term peace and stability through a two-state solution.
Also on Thursday, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak called for new elections in part to prevent Netanyahu from creating a “quagmire” in Gaza.
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“The IDF cannot optimize the probability of winning when there is no defined political goal. In the absence of a realistic goal, we will end up mired in the Gaza quagmire, fighting simultaneously in Lebanon and in the West Bank, eroding the American backing and endangering the Abraham Accords and the peace agreements with Egypt and with Jordan,” he wrote in an op-ed published in Haaretz.
Barak, who has long backed a two-state resolution to the centuries-old conflict, warned that Netanyahu is beholden to the far-right members of his coalition, who “block Israel from acting for the sake of its security in coordination with the United States and drag it into the abyss in the service of private interests,” Barak noted.
