From the Liveblog of
Tuesday, April 16, 2024
Gantz says Israel will respond to Iran ‘in the place, time and manner it chooses’
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"
Israel will choose the time and place to respond to this weekend’s Iranian drone and missile attack while working with the United States to build a global and regional alliance against Tehran, says war cabinet Minister Benny Gantz.
“Iran is a global and regional problem, and also a threat to Israel. Therefore the world should act against it militarily and impose sanctions on it in order to stop its aggression,” the former IDF chief of staff says on stage at a conference organized by the Israel Hayom daily newspaper.
“I discussed this with senior officials in the American administration in the last day, and Israel will work together with them to promote this,” he continues.
“In this context, promoting the normalization processes, which will create the strategic reversal in the region against the Iranian axis, will serve that purpose. Israel will act out of strategic wisdom, and will respond in the place, time and manner it chooses. And this is not the place to elaborate,” he says.
Turning to the issue of the war in Gaza, Gantz says that the return of the hostages “is not only moral duty of the first order, but a leading strategic objective in the war,” and promises to continue working to bring them home.
On the matter of ultra-Orthodox enlistment, he says that talks are ongoing and rejects the idea of a “political compromise” that would protect yeshiva students’ exemptions as harming Israeli security.
“We need a comprehensive and broad [military] service plan,” he declares.
