Gantz says Israel must directly target Iran to deter ongoing Houthi attacks
National Unity leader also calls for regional nations, US to partner with Israel to remove threat of nuclear Iranian regime

Faced with Houthi attacks from Yemen and dangers posed by other Iranian proxies, Israel “must target Iran directly,” opposition politician Benny Gantz declared on Monday.
Speaking with the press ahead of his National Unity party’s weekly faction meeting in the Knesset, Gantz stated that “the solution to putting an end to the attacks lies in Tehran.”
“Today, we have the opportunity to catalyze a ‘strategic flip’ against Iran and its proxies. We must capitalize on the opportunity. It would be a strategic mistake of historic proportion not to,” said Gantz, a former defense minister and IDF chief.
The security establishment apparently agrees with Gantz, according to a Channel 12 report Sunday that said the question of tackling Iran — a possible reference both to efforts to deter the Houthis and to target Iran’s nuclear facilities — has come up repeatedly in security cabinet meetings, even as the focus has been on finding ways to counter the upsurge in Houthi missile attacks.
Channel 13, for its part, quoted Mossad chief David Barnea saying: “We need to go for the head [of the snake], for Iran — if we only hit the Houthis, it’s not certain we’ll manage to stop them.”
Quoting unnamed Israeli political and military leaders, Channel 12 reported that Tehran’s leadership believes Israel may soon attack it, and is holding frenzied consultations to decide what to do in the event that it does.
The report added that Iran believes Israel agreed to a ceasefire last month in its conflict with Hezbollah up north because it would free up forces to focus on a direct attack against the Islamic regime.

In his statement, Gantz said that “the nations of the region together with the United States must work together with Israel to remove the threat of a nuclear Iranian regime,” adding that a comprehensive deal with Hamas covering all of the hostages held in Gaza was also needed, even if their release would be spread over a period of time.
Negotiations for a hostage deal are ongoing with officials involved in the talks expressing cautious optimism in the last week that an agreement may be close. However, reports on the details of the deal say it would not include all the remaining hostages held captive in Gaza, but would only see 34 hostages released, including some bodies of hostages who have been killed.
It is believed that 96 of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the IDF.
Hamas released 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November, and four hostages were released before that. Eight hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 38 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the military as they tried to escape their captors.
Other than securing the release of the remaining hostages, Gantz said, “We must use this time to do what Netanyahu has refused to do for over a year: replace the Hamas government,” adding that while Hamas’s commanders have largely been eliminated and its infrastructure destroyed, Israel “continues to let it run the Strip.”
“The State of Israel has not made a real decision to replace Hamas. It is not working with our friends in the world to establish an administration to run the Gaza Strip as I proposed a year ago. Such plans exist in the defense establishment, but this is something that can only be led by a determined political echelon, one that is not bound by messianic dreams and coalition needs,” he asserted.

Even if a new government focused on de-radicalization is established, however, Hamas will not disappear overnight, requiring the IDF to continue operating in Gaza in the future and “ninth-grade children will still be fighting in Gaza” when they grow up and are conscripted.
On the topic of enlistment, Gantz cited an internal Finance Ministry report slamming the government’s enlistment bill, stating that if it had accepted his proposal for a mobilization outline “we would already have thousands of young soldiers on the front lines.”
“The conscription outline they want to pass is a car without an engine,” he added, calling on Likud lawmakers Yuli Edelstein and Yoav Gallant not to support the bill.
According to an internal analysis of the economic impact of the legislation, the bill — which would enshrine the exemption of ultra-Orthodox men from military service — has “significant flaws” and would fail to ease the burden on Israel’s reservists.
The Haredi religious and political leadership have fiercely resisted any effort to force members of the community to serve in the military. The community’s longstanding exemptions from the mandatory military draft were challenged in June, when the High Court of Justice ruled that there is no legal basis for their decades-long exemption.