Contradicting PM, ruling party MK says Israel barely achieved anything in Gaza

Even as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declares that Israel is close to eliminating Hamas’s military capabilities, a lawmaker in his own party has argued today that the almost nine-month military offensive in Gaza has barely anything to show for it.

Speaking to the Knesset Channel, Likud MK Amit Halevi says, “The results in Gaza are very bad, they’re very poor. The IDF has barely made any strategic achievement in the Gaza Strip.”

Halevi says the responsibility for this failure lies with the military as well as the government, though he mainly elaborates on the military’s portion.

“The government set goals — the elimination of Hamas’s military and governing capabilities — and the IDF brought a plan that can’t fulfill these goals,” he says, urging IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi to “rethink and bring forward a different plan.”

He claims that the same approach will not work in countering the threat posed by Hezbollah, and says that to avoid a similar failure, Israel should delay the start of a potential full-on offensive in Lebanon.