6/20/2024–|Last updated: 6/20/202404:59 PM (Mecca time)
The accusations facing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have escalated, amid talk that tensions between him and the army establishment have reached their peak against the backdrop of recent developments.
Israeli Channel 12 quoted the head of the Israeli Labor Party, Yair Golan, as saying that he will not sit with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, because he is destroying Israel, and he will not sit with the extremist nationalists, as he put it.
Golan stressed that it is impossible to destroy the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and release detainees at the same time.
The Wall Street Journal quoted retired Israeli General Yisrael Ziv as saying that tensions between the army and Netanyahu have reached their highest levels, and that the army has a feeling that Israel has exhausted the purpose of the war.
He added that the army is close to completing the mission set by the government, and that it will reach a point where we will engage in a guerrilla war.
On the other hand, Israeli Channel 14 quoted a State Comptroller report stating that the government failed to pay attention to the home front at the beginning of the war without justification.
Other accusations against Netanyahu
Former Minister of the Israeli War Council, Benny Gantz, also accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of abandoning the residents of the northern regions near the border with Lebanon, and considered that it was not possible to wage a war against Hezbollah in this way.
Gantz, the most prominent candidate to form the next government, said on the X platform that Netanyahu is not meeting with the heads of authorities (municipalities) in the north (with Lebanon), and is not ready to commit to the safe return of the population.
Since the eighth of last October, Lebanese and Palestinian factions in Lebanon, most notably Hezbollah, have exchanged daily bombardments with the Israeli army across the Blue Line, leaving hundreds dead and wounded, most of them on the Lebanese side.
These factions say that they stand in solidarity with the Gaza Strip, which has been exposed to an Israeli war since October 7 that left about 123,000 Palestinians dead or wounded, most of them children and women, and more than 10,000 missing amid deadly famine and massive destruction.
As a result of the confrontations, more than 62,000 Israelis were displaced from settlements near the Lebanese border, while 90,000 Lebanese were displaced from the border areas, according to official statistics from both sides.
On June 9, Gantz and the other minister from his party, Gadi Eisenkot, announced their resignation from the War Council, which they had joined on October 11.
They accused Netanyahu of preventing Israel from progressing towards achieving what they called a real victory on the Gaza and northern fronts, and called for early parliamentary elections.
For months, the opposition has accused Netanyahu of following policies that serve his personal interests, especially continuing in office, and failing to achieve the declared goals of the war on Gaza, especially eliminating Hamas and returning Israeli prisoners.
Netanyahu rejects calls for the resignation of his coalition government and holding early elections, claiming that this would paralyze the state and freeze prisoner exchange negotiations for a period of up to 8 months.
