Impatient ministers said to ask IDF chief: When will we destroy Hamas, kill its leaders?

19 December 2023, 5:49 pm

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Illustrative: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu leads a cabinet meeting at the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem on December 10, 2023. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

In what it characterized as an “infantile” exchange at last night’s security cabinet meeting, Channel 12 quotes several ministers impatiently asking IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi when the IDF will destroy Hamas and kill its chiefs.

Several ministers, the report says, asked Halevi: “When will we see an achievement?” They specified that by “an achievement,” they meant bringing home the hostages, destroying Hamas’s capabilities, and eliminating its commanders.

Halevi, in response, reportedly said: “Hitting the commanders takes time. It took 10 years to deliver the head of [Osama] bin Laden. The best people are working on it here, so it’ll take a lot less time.”

Justice Minister Yariv Levin: “We went into Gaza so that it would take 10 years? It’ll take 10 years to destroy Hamas?”

Transportation Minister Miri Regev: “Who’ll be here to see the result?”

Foreign Minister Eli Cohen, Levin and Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel, together: “We will. We’ll be here in another 10 years.”

Regev: “We need it in a lot less than 10 years.”