Israeli war cabinet minister Gadi Eisenkot took direct aim at Benjamin Netanyahu in a televised interview late Thursday in which he accused the prime minister of not being honest about Israel’s wartime objectives in Gaza.
Speaking with Israel’s Channel 12, Eisenkot addressed Netanyahu’s recent press conference, in which the prime minister publicly dismissed the U.S. push for a Palestinian state after the war is over—and reiterated his intentions to keep the war going until Israel achieves “complete victory” over Hamas.
Eisenkot, a former IDF chief of staff whose son was killed fighting in Gaza last month, was asked during the interview whether he thought Israel’s top government officials were being honest about their war aims. He answered with a straightforward “No.”
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“Whoever speaks of absolute defeat is not speaking the truth… That is why we should not tell stories… Today, the situation already in the Gaza Strip is such that the goals of the war have not yet been achieved,” he said, according to a Times of Israel translation. “I am already at the stage and at an age where I do not trust this or that leader with my eyes closed, and I judge a man by his decisions and the way he leads the country,” he added.
The former general took more jabs at Netanyahu over the course of the interview, saying that the prime minister bears “clear responsibility” for the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas. He advocated for new elections because of the “serious… lack of trust from the Israeli public in his [Netanyahu’s] government.”
“You have to show leadership in the ability to tell the truth to people, the ability to chart a path,” he said. “As a democracy, the State of Israel needs to ask itself after such a serious event, ‘How do we continue from here with a leadership that has failed us miserably?’”
Israel’s relentless bombardment of Gaza has sparked worldwide protests over the past three months. The dire humanitarian crisis in the enclave has prompted increasingly urgent calls for a ceasefire from human rights organizations like the United Nations, as well as sharp condemnation of Israel’s war strategies from governments across the globe.
More than 25,000 Palestinian men, women, and children have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war on Oct. 7, when Hamas militants infiltrated Israel, killing roughly 1,200 citizens and taking some 240 captive. Approximately 130 hostages remain in Hamas’ captivity, according to current Israeli government reports.
