Labor’s Michaeli says Israel must start planning for after war, cannot stay in Gaza

Labor party head Merav Michaeli says Israel should make returning the more than 240 hostages kidnapped by Hamas its “supreme goal.”

Speaking at the outset of her party’s Knesset faction meeting, attended by representatives of hostage families, Michaeli says the government is prioritizing victory over Hamas, and said that there “is a feeling that it is not certain that we will make any effort to make this [hostage return] happen.”

Michaeli also says that, a month into Israel’s war, the cabinet should start discussing a plan for postwar Gaza.

“We must work hand in hand with the United States, Europe, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority to formulate a framework that will allow Israel to leave Gaza when Gaza is demilitarized and where Hamas will not be able to re-establish itself,” Michaeli suggests.

Michaeli reiterates her call for Netanyahu to step down, and says he is beholden to political extremists including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.

“Netanyahu, who again incited against reservists and pilots yesterday, knows that without the ‘messianists,’ without the Smotriches, he does not have 64 [coalition seats] and his government will fall,” she says. “Therefore, he is selling us all to messianists, at the risk of opening a third front in the West Bank and needlessly killing soldiers and civilians.”