Lapid: The only victory for Israel is ‘a hostage deal that will bring our children home and restore deterrence’

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid says the only victory for Israel will be “a hostage deal that will bring our children home and restore deterrence,” while congratulating Israel’s defense establishment on “justified eliminations and precise operations.”

Lapid makes the comments at the so-called Hostages Square in Tel Aviv following his security briefing from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Kirya military headquarters nearby, hours after the IDF confirmed the death of Muhammad Deif, the commander of Hamas’s military wing, in an Israeli strike in Gaza last month.

“Our enemies should know that we have a strong nation and a strong army that will reach them anywhere,” he says.

Lapid has been extremely critical of Netanyahu’s handling of the war in Gaza and in the north, telling the Knesset earlier this month that “this government is failing to manage the country, the war, the economy, our relationship with the United States, and it’s losing the hostages, who are wasting away and being murdered and dying underground.”