Eisenkot: Ra’am won’t be part of government I lead; Netanyahu guilty of either borderline ‘treason’ or gross breach of trust over Qatar funding Hamas
'They’re losing so badly': Trump confirms rejecting Iranian proposal to reopen Hormuz * Ireland soccer chief says game against Israel to go ahead after ‘significant majority’ of players vote in favor
Hitting back, Segalovitz says Eisenkot ‘won’t have a government without Ra’am’
Ra’am No. 2 Yoav Segalovitz hits back at Yashar leader Gadi Eisenkot for declaring that the Islamist party won’t be part of his next government, accusing him of “folding in the face of Likud’s intimidation campaign.”
“Israel needs big change and true partnership through brave leadership. Eisenkot won’t have a government without Ra’am,” Segalovitz writes on X.
Heads of Zionist opposition parties vow not to attack each other before Oct. 27 election
The heads of leading opposition parties publish a declaration vowing to work together to form a “Zionist, statesmanlike” government, which includes pledges not to attack each other on the campaign trail and to cooperate ahead of the October 27 vote in a bid to boost turnout for their bloc.
The statement of principles is signed by Yashar leader Gadi Eisenkot, B’Yachad chief Naftali Bennett and the party’s No. 2 Yair Lapid, Democrats head Yair Golan and Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman.
“We are united and determined to bring correction and hope to the State of Israel,” write the party bosses after meeting at Lapid’s home.
Notably absent from the talks is Blue and White party chief Benny Gantz, who placed a mobile billboard outside Lapid’s home stating that “the blocs are holding up Israel.”
Eisenkot calls Netanyahu a ‘pathalogical liar’ engaged in a ‘forever war as a tool for political survival’
Gadi Eisenkot, the main rival to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in next month’s general election, blasts the premier as a “pathological liar, in Hebrew and English,” who has instilled a “culture of dishonesty” in the Israeli public discourse.
The Yashar party leader is asked about comments he made in the tail end of his term as IDF chief in January 2019 backing the transfer of Qatari money to Gaza, for which he is now assailing Netanyahu, and says the one transfer he oversaw in November 2018 “went smoothly,” with all the money verifiably reaching its recipients. Reports at the time indicated that the recipients of the $15 million payment, which Qatar’s envoy to Gaza brought into the enclave in suitcases stuffed with US dollars, had been civilians in need and also Hamas’s civilian authorities to pay its civil workers.
He argues that he learned two years ago that later in 2019, after his term ended, the Shin Bet warned that Hamas’s military wing had taken over $4 million out of a Qatari transfer of $15 million and recommending halting the payment system, but Netanyahu decided to continue it for years, effectively propping up the terror group.
“This is an utterly unreasonable decision, or there is some secret thing I’m not aware of. This must be investigated,” he claims.
Eisenkot sidesteps repeated questions about public comments he made in 2024 that backed a diplomatic agreement to end the war with Lebanon’s Hezbollah terror group — before the operation to blow up thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies held by Hezbollah members — claiming that behind closed doors he had urged Netanyahu to carry out a fuller pager operation he had overseen preparations for, but the premier objected.
“That’s Netanyahu’s whole problem. He belittles the value of strategy, he extends the war [and] he views a forever war as a tool for political survival.”
Days before Oct. 7, PM ordered that Israel ‘act to contain, minimize the escalation’ in Gaza — TV
A day after Egypt’s intelligence chief flew into Ben Gurion Airport to reportedly warn that Hamas was mobilizing in Gaza and advise further Israeli concessions to the Gaza-ruling terror group to avoid a conflict, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered that Israel avoid measures that could lead to a military escalation, according to an Israeli television report.
Channel 13 news cites the minutes from the September 27 meeting, in which “the prime minister determined that [Israel] must act to contain and minimize the escalation, while using intelligence and controlled force.”
He also reportedly called “to sharpen” the warnings against the launching of arson balloons from Gaza into Israel and to ramp up humanitarian benefits, the latter apparently a reference to Israel’s reopening a day later of the crossing for Palestinians laborers employed in the country as part of an Egyptian-brokered deal for Hamas to stop border riots.
The Israeli TV network also cites an October 1 document that says Israel was poised to reach a peace deal with Saudi Arabia and should therefore “maintain a measured level of security activity,” echoing reporting from the New York Times that Netanyahu didn’t want to authorize strikes in Gaza out of concern they could harm normalization efforts vis-a-vis Riyadh.
The report adds that one of the documents includes a line about the need “to advance the operational preparedness for the targeted killings that were recommended of Hamas leaders” but doesn’t specify whether it’s from the meetings of the September 27 or October 1 meeting, or say who made that recommendation.
At UN, Saudi FM says world must do more to ensure freedom of navigation
Saudi Arabia warns UN members that attempts to block Middle East waterways are a threat to global energy security and demands that the international community do more to defend freedom of navigation.
“The international community has been absent from assuming its responsibilities in confronting all that threatens international peace and security,” Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan told the United Nations General Assembly.
Israel says soccer ‘has won’ after Irish players decide not to boycott match
Israel hails a vote by Irish players to go ahead with a match against it despite calls for a boycott, saying that soccer must be separated from politics.
“What pleases us today is that soccer has won,” the Israel Football Association says in a statement. “The ones who have certainly lost today are those who wanted to intimidate, to separate and to turn the soccer pitch into a political arena.”
Iraq says US agreed to continue shipments of cash dollars
Iraq has reached an understanding with the United States to continue dollar cash shipments to Iraq, with a new shipment expected in the coming days, a government spokesperson tells the Iraqi News Agency.
The US resumed some dollar cash shipments to Iraq in July after a months-long suspension, according to Iraqi officials, after Washington halted a shipment of about $500 million in April.
Netanyahu adviser met senior Qatari official day before PM railed at Doha from UN podium — report
A day before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced Qatar for supporting Hamas while addressing the UN General Assembly, one of the premier’s advisers met with a senior Qatari official in New York City, Channel 12 news reports.
The network says that Michael Eisenberg and Ali al-Thawadi discussed the implementation of the US-backed Gaza peace plan and the entry of humanitarian aid to the coastal enclave.
The report notes that al-Thawadi, who serves as Qatar’s representative to the US-backed Gaza Executive Board, was present in the Oval Office last year when US President Donald Trump had Netanyahu call the Qatari emir to apologize for Israel’s failed strike on Hamas leaders in Doha.
Eisenkot: Ra’am won’t be part of government I lead; Netanyahu guilty of either borderline ‘treason’ or gross breach of trust over Qatar funding Hamas
In an interview with Channel 12 news, Yashar party leader Gadi Eisenkot declares that the Islamist Ra’am party will not be part of a government he leads.
Eisenkot says he is working to win 64-65 seats for the Zionist anti-Netanyahu bloc, claiming that internal surveys indicate that “16-18% of our supporters are people who backed the [current] coalition in the previous election.”
He is then asked about polls that consistently show the bloc well short of the 61-strong majority in the 120-member Knesset needed to form a coalition, and about reports that he plans to form a minority government backed by Ra’am.
Eisenkot says that to be included in his coalition, Arab and Haredi parties must support Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, the Declaration of Independence and universal conscription, as well as recognizing Hamas as a terror group that must be destroyed.
“At the moment I don’t see any Arab or Haredi parties who accept these principles, including [Ra’am leader] Mansour Abbas, and therefore he won’t be part of my next government,” he says.
Asked about reports that he is demanding that his party members sign an ethics code requiring them to resign rather than defect to the rival bloc if they disagree with a future move he makes, Eisenkot says he wants to bring in new norms in which people don’t betray their voters, giving as an example Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, who joined Netanyahu’s government after repeatedly declaring he wouldn’t do so.
However, he adds that if he breaks an election promise such as the vow not to let Ra’am join his coalition without fulfilling his conditions, “I expect party members to take a stand.”
Eisenkot, a former IDF chief, also hits out at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the military campaigns against Hamas and Hezbollah, noting neither terror group has been defeated despite the premier’s vows of “total victory.”
“Netanyahu blindly, arrogantly and irresponsibly led the State of Israel to the greatest disaster in its history,” Eisenkot adds, referring to the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led invasion of Israel from Gaza.
Commenting on the transfer of Qatari funds to Hamas following a report that Netanyahu was warned Qatar was funding the Gaza-ruling terrorist organization’s military wing, Eisenkot says the premier is guilty of either borderline “treason” or a gross breach of trust and calls for an investigation.
Additionally, he says he opposes the establishment of a Palestinian state and always has done.
IDF says Gaza strikes killed Hamas commander and another terror operative
A Hamas commander and another member of the terror group were killed in separate strikes in the Gaza Strip yesterday, the military announces.
One strike in central Gaza’s Nuseirat camp killed Ibrahim Fawzi Ismail Mohsen, identified by the IDF as a member of Hamas’s elite Nukhba Force.
The IDF says another strike on Friday, in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis, killed Hamas operative Mohammed Kamel Suleiman Mohsen.
Both operatives had been advancing attacks against troops and Israeli civilians, acting to restore Hamas infrastructure “in systematic violation of the ceasefire,” the military says, adding that they were killed to “remove the threat that they posed.”