Bennett rebukes former partner Abbas after he claims ‘50,000 civilians murdered in Gaza’
‘The IDF is eliminating vile terrorists,’ says former PM after Ra’am party leader makes claim at Knesset; MK Ayman Odeh booted from plenum for calling Netanyahu a ‘terrorist’
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
The leader of the Arab Islamist Ra’am party, MK Mansour Abbas, courted controversy Wednesday when he claimed from the Knesset rostrum that “50,000 civilians have been murdered in Gaza.”
Another leading Arab MK was removed from the plenum during the session on the state of the war in Gaza for calling Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a “terrorist.”
Abbas’s comments on the Gaza war’s death toll were particularly striking as he is seen as a moderate among Arab lawmakers, and he made history in 2021, when he brought his party into the coalition, the first Arab list to do so in decades.
Abbas made the comment while responding to coalition lawmakers who were heckling him during a speech.
Abbas strongly condemned Hamas’s October 7 attacks, and in November asked a party member to resign after she expressed doubts regarding Hamas atrocities. At the same time, he has for months urged a ceasefire between Israel and the terror group. Many in the Israeli government believe a permanent ceasefire is not possible before Hamas is destroyed, and that one should only be considered temporarily as part of a deal to release hostages.
Abbas was speaking against the damage caused by ongoing war at the plenum during a so-called 40 signatures debate — one the opposition can call with 40 signatures of MKs once a month and which the prime minister is legally obliged to attend.
At one point, as Abbas said Israel must do everything to bring back hostages, Likud MK Hanoch Milwidsky shouted at him: “You want to stop the war!”
A visibly incensed Abbas retorted: “Of course I want to stop the war! Fifty thousand civilians have been murdered in the Gaza Strip!”
Hamas’s own numbers put the total death toll in Gaza at some 39,000, without distinguishing between combatants and civilians. That figure has come under question, with at least 10,000 deaths apparently based on murky Hamas “media sources” rather than bodies brought to hospitals.
Of the total deaths, Israel assesses that at least 15,000 are terror operatives killed in combat.
Abbas’s statement led to angry shouting by several other MKs and prompted Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana to order him off the rostrum.
Firebrand Likud MK Tally Gotliv repeatedly yelled at Abbas following his comments, requiring Ohana to order her to return to her seat.
“You call the soldiers murderers and you will not be here!” she cried.
"50,000 אזרחים נרצחו ברצועת עזה": ח"כ מנסור עבאס התייחס למצב בעזה ועורר מהומה במליאה. צפו:@mnsorabbas @TallyGotliv @AmirOhana @hanochmilwidsky pic.twitter.com/1yX77MLpsS
— ערוץ כנסת (@KnessetT) July 17, 2024
Responding to Abbas’s comments, his erstwhile political ally, former prime minister Naftali Bennett, tweeted a rebuke.
“Mansour, I’ll correct you,” he wrote. “Fifty thousand people were not ‘murdered’ in Gaza. The IDF is eliminating vile terrorists who murdered, kidnapped and raped civilians on October 7. Sometimes these cowardly terrorists hide behind civilians, thereby causing their deaths. The IDF is a moral army.”
Bennett, a nationalist religious prime minister, joined forces with left-wing, centrist, and other right-wing politicians in 2021 to form a first-of-its-kind unity coalition that included parties with conflicting worldviews, including Ra’am.
Abbas was the first Arab Israeli party leader in half a century to sign a deal to sit in a coalition government, a move that subjected Bennett to harsh criticism on the right at the time.
In response to Abbas and Bennett, Environment Minister Idit Silman — who served as coalition whip under Bennett before defecting to Likud — declared that “we made a grave mistake by allowing the Muslim Brotherhood and parties that encourage terrorism to have their hands on the steering wheel of the country.
“Mansour’s heart is with the people of Gaza, while our hearts go out to the hostages and our soldiers,” she tweeted.
The Islamist Abbas, a complex figure, previously courted controversy among his own base by stating that Israel will always be a Jewish state. Following October 7, Abbas condemned Hamas and called for Palestinian terror groups to demilitarize and work with the Palestinian Authority in order to establish a Palestinian state through non-violent means.
This April, the Corporations Authority announced that two non-profits associated with the southern branch of Israel’s Islamic Movement and Abbas’ Ra’am party were set to be dissolved over alleged links to terror financing.
Abbas was not implicated and his party blamed the Netanyahu government for funding Hamas and accused it of seeking to divert attention from its own mistakes.
Further drama occurred at the same session when MK Ayman Odeh, head of the predominantly Arab Hadash-Ta’al party, was ordered out of the plenum for shouting at Netanyahu.
During Netanyahu’s speech, in which he hit back at critics of his management of the war in Gaza and claimed that Israel is “on the way to absolute victory” over Gaza terrorists, Odeh cried out “The terrorist is you,” leading to his removal.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
