Gantz says 3 mayors he had met with were excluded from Netanyahu security call

National Unity party leader Benny Gantz of the opposition blasted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday, after the premier called local leaders for a security talk, following a multifront spate of violence, and left out several council heads who had met with Gantz in recent days.

On a call with mayors and leaders of communities in southern and northern Israel, Netanyahu vowed to restore calm during a tense period, his office said.

“We are in a period that will test us in security, and our enemies were wrong when they thought that the citizens of Israel were not united behind the IDF,” Netanyahu told the officials, according to a statement.

“We are all united behind the security of the country and will do everything to ensure calm and security for us all,” he said.

Netanyahu thanked the mayors and community leaders for their citizens’ “steadfastness” during rocket fire from the Gaza Strip, Lebanon, and Syria, in recent days, his office added.

According to Channel 12 news, Netanyahu also said that “the last word has not been said,” regarding the escalation and Israel’s response, without elaborating.

The leaders of Metulla, Mateh Asher, and Shlomi, three northern communities and regions that took rocket fire this week, said they had not been invited to the call.

“At the end of the week, I went up north to give strength to the residents. I also met with three local leaders whose residents suffered rocket fire,” Gantz said. “Today, I found out that the prime minister held talks with local leaders, but cut [these three] out. This is saddening, but also dangerous.”

Gantz likened Netanyahu’s call to the premier’s decision last month to fire Defense Minister Yoav Gallant after the latter publicly called for a halt to the government’s judicial overhaul, because of its security implications. Gallant has not been formally fired and remains in his position.

“The rockets fired by our enemies do not distinguish between right or left, between a citizen whose local leader met with me or didn’t,” Gantz said. “We don’t have the privilege to play politics with security. Netanyahu, this will end in disaster.”

Gantz is a former head of the Israel Defense Forces and served as the previous defense minister.

Moshe Davidovich, the head of the Mateh Asher Regional Council, said he had not received “a single phone call, just like some other regional authorities who are located near the border.”

“I hope there was not a [deliberate] selection in the choice of regional authorities the prime minister spoke with,” he said, according to Haaretz.

The head of the Shlomi local council, Gabi Naaman, said: “I really hope there is no anger here, maybe because myself and Moshe Davidovich, on the day of the rocket attacks, sat with Benny Gantz who came to visit.”

“I’m a Likud man forever and always, a member of the Likud central committee, I run in every candidacy for the regional council on an independent list together with Likud,” Naaman said. “I would like to [be able to] rule out the possibility that they’re not talking to me because I talked to Gantz.”

The head of the Metulla local council, David Azoulay, also was not invited to the call. Azoulay is right-wing, but has publicly opposed Netanyahu, including during Likud primaries, Haaretz reported.

Thirty-four rockets were fired from southern Lebanon on Thursday afternoon in the most serious barrage in years, with 25 intercepted by the Iron Dome air defense system over northern Israel. At least three people were injured and several buildings were damaged. Rockets were also fired from the Gaza Strip.

Another six rockets were launched on Saturday night and early Sunday, this time from southern Syria at the Golan Heights, in two separate barrages hours apart, with three landing in Israeli territory, the military said.

The attacks followed two consecutive nights of clashes between police and Palestinians at Al-Aqsa Mosque on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount.

Three people have also been killed in suspected Palestinian terror attacks in recent days.