Lapid says alternative to Hamas rule is needed, proposes Egypt take control of Gaza

By Sam Sokol 19 May 2025, 4:41 pm

1 Edit

Sam Sokol is a former political correspondent at The Times of Israel. 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"

Yesh Atid party chief Yair Lapid leads a faction meeting at the Knesset in Jerusalem, May 19, 2025. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid slams the government for leading Israel into a quagmire in Gaza, calling for Egypt to rule the coastal Palestinian territory.

“We all support eliminating Hamas, but Hamas will not disappear if an alternative to its rule is not presented. What is the Israeli government’s plan? Who is supposed to replace Hamas and rule Gaza?” Lapid asks reporters during his Yesh Atid party’s weekly faction meeting in the Knesset.

“If our fighters, our heroes, are now going to be killed and wounded in Gaza every day for three or four or five years, then let the government stop hiding and say it out loud,” he continues, asserting that causing the IDF to “sink in the Gaza mud for years is a strategic mistake, an economic disaster, and a political tragedy that will not allow us to be part of the historic change in the Middle East that we saw during President Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia.”

“I presented a completely different plan. The one who should manage Gaza in the coming years is Egypt. Israel should make a coordinated effort with the Americans, and transfer Gaza to Egyptian control for the next 15 years,” he says, adding that it is “not a perfect solution, but it is the best solution of all those on the table. The Americans know this too.”

Lapid also denies attacking Yair Golan’s The Democrats party, following a news report that he dismissed the left-wing faction as part of the “radical left.”

“There are people from the more radical left in there. I don’t think Golan would think otherwise. It’s not an attack to say that the left is left, just as it’s not an attack if they say about us that we are centrist and we accept that with love,” Lapid tells reporters.

“I assume they are proud of what they are, just as we are proud of being the party of the Israeli middle class, which works, pays taxes [and] serves in the reserves.”