6/16/2024–|Last updated: 6/16/202408:22 PM (Mecca time)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday attacked the military leadership of the Israeli army after it announced a “tactical truce” in the city of Rafah in the Gaza Strip, “without coordination with him,” he said. He stressed that this truce was “unacceptable,” and that he “heard about it through the media.”
Netanyahu added that “Israel is a state that has an army, not an army that has a state,” and stressed that “there are those who want to change the goals of the war (on the Gaza Strip), similar to the two resigned ministers,” referring to Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot, who resigned from the emergency government last week, considering They “want defeatist decisions.”
Without coordination
Israeli Channel 12 quoted Netanyahu as saying today during the weekly government session that he often “made decisions to undermine the capabilities” of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), “but they were not always acceptable at the military level.”
Earlier on Sunday morning, Israeli army spokesman Avichai Adraee announced, through his account on the Shalom (Kerem Shalom) to Salah El-Din Street and its north.”
Netanyahu said that the political leadership in Israel was not informed of the statement published by Adraee, nor was it coordinated with them regarding it. He announced the opening of “an investigation into how such a statement came out without coordination with the political level.”
However, Netanyahu said that there are indeed “short truce periods on short axes” to bring humanitarian aid into Gaza, “but not in the manner announced by the army spokesman.”
Army explanatory statement
At the same time, Israeli Army Radio said that Defense Minister Yoav Galant did not know in advance of any tactical truce in the southern Gaza Strip, and added that the army was forced to issue an explanatory statement in which it indicated that there was no tactical cessation of military operations in the southern Gaza Strip.
In response to Adraee’s statement: The army said in a statement on its account on the To transport humanitarian aid only.”
While Netanyahu asked his military secretary to inquire about the army’s statement, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said that the decision had not been presented to the Ministerial Council, and described it as a “foolish and evil decision,” and stressed that whoever issued it should be dismissed.
Haaretz newspaper quoted a source in the Israeli army who denied the claim that the decision to declare a tactical truce was taken without the knowledge of the political leadership. The source confirmed that it was Netanyahu who instructed the leaders of the security services to increase aid to Gaza, on the eve of an upcoming debate in the International Court of Justice, which will consider the case against Israel.