Lapid says PA should be part of post-war Gaza rule, but must be de-radicalized first

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid clarifies that he believes the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority should be part of Gaza’s post-war management, but that it first needs to be de-radicalized.

“I said that the Palestinian Authority needs to be part of the civilian management of Gaza,” says Lapid, but that it first “needs to go through a de-radicalization process.”

Turning to the government’s wartime budget update, which is making its way through the Knesset this week, Lapid attacks the plan to redistribute NIS 30 billion for wartime needs because it permits non-wartime political priorities to continue to be funded.

“The [coalition] funds are a national disgrace,” Lapid says.

Lapid accuses Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of hypocrisy, saying that if their political roles were reversed, that Netanyahu would have asked for Lapid’s “head on a platter.”

“He who has failed in this way can’t continue,” Lapid says, adding that the current government, under whose watch Hamas killed over 1,200 people in Israel on October 7 and triggered the current war, “should go.”