Bennett accuses Netanyahu of asking October 7 victims to ‘kiss’ his hand

Former prime minister Naftali Bennett, head of the opposition B’Yachad party, accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of demanding that victims of the Hamas-led onslaught of October 7, 2023, “kiss his hand” in gratitude rather than taking responsibility for the security debacle that happened on his watch.

The comments came after Netanyahu, his Likud party, and a campaign aligned with it put out messages on Wednesday, the third anniversary of the invasion and massacre, saying that Israelis should be grateful for his actions surrounding and after the attack.

“I was a CEO in a start-up. I was a company commander in the military. I was a minister, a prime minister,” Bennett said on Army Radio. “Every time there was an error, a failure — from my point of view, I feel responsible.”

He continued, “When you bear responsibility for the murder of 1,200 people because you funded the Nukhbas” — Hamas’s elite fighting force — “and then you come to the victims and tell them to kiss your hand, then you’re not manly. You’re not human.”

Bennett made the comment after the interviewer cited a video that Netanyahu uploaded on Wednesday in which a candidate in his Likud party, Talik Gvili, praised the premier for fulfilling his vow to bring back the body of her son Ran, who was killed on October 7, 2023, and was the last Hamas hostage returned to Israel.

The host also cited a billboard campaign that has recently gone up around the country with the slogan “Thank you to the government of Israel.” The campaign is officially unaffiliated with Likud, but is run by pro-Netanyahu media personality Berale Crombie.

טליק גואילי, האמנת שנחזיר את רן? pic.twitter.com/UKYPnP5pIN

— Benjamin Netanyahu – בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) October 7, 2026

In its sole written statement to mark the third October 7 anniversary, Likud on Wednesday briefly expressed sympathy for victims before crediting the premier at length with the “tremendous success” of “returning every hostage” and “conquering” Gaza, among other things.

The statement sought at length to absolve Netanyahu of any blame for failures leading up to the onslaught, and accused Channel 12, which reported on some of those failures on Wednesday, of airing false propaganda.

Another vocal pro-Netanyahu media personality, Yinon Magal, on Tuesday said people, including hostage families and surviving captives who blamed Netanyahu for the deaths of dozens of hostages in Gaza, were “the most despicable” people in the country and could absolve themselves only by voting for Likud in the October 27 election.

Of 251 people abducted during the onslaught, 46 who were abducted alive were killed in captivity, mostly by their captors but also in some cases by IDF fire, as negotiations repeatedly stalled, including amid threats from Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partners to topple his government if the war were to cease. Despite suffering major military blows in Gaza following the onslaught, Hamas remains intact and governs a portion of the Strip, including almost all of its population.

Likud on Wednesday also released a picture of Netanyahu next to several pictures of “victims murdered on October 7 by the monsters of Hamas.” Among them was Yuval Castleman, who was in fact killed by an off-duty IDF reservist while confronting assailants during a terror attack in Jerusalem on November 30, 2023.

Neither Netanyahu nor any members of his government appeared to be present at Wednesday night’s main memorial ceremony in Tel Aviv, which was organized by survivors and bereaved families and drew some 50,000 people, including several opposition leaders.

The long-serving premier has never accepted direct responsibility for the failures that led up to the October 7 massacre, and instead repeatedly deflected blame onto the defense establishment, opposition politicians and anti-government protesters.

Stav Levaton contributed to this report.