From the Liveblog of
Monday, January 19, 2026
Lapid: Under Netanyahu, Gaza returning to ‘a point much worse than at the beginning’
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. 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"
Opposition Leader Yair Lapid accuses Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of mismanaging relations with the United States and post-war Gaza during a 40-signatures debate in the Knesset plenum.
“President Trump has announced, over your head, the composition of the ‘executive committee’ of Gaza. Hamas’s hosts in Istanbul and Doha, Hamas’s ideological partners, have been invited to run Gaza,” Lapid says, referring to the United States’ decision to include Qatari and Turkish representatives on the executive committee of the Board of Peace that will oversee the postwar management of Gaza.
“Since that speech, President Trump has also announced the composition of the committee of technocrats that is supposed to run daily life in Gaza. I know you’re trying to gloss over this, but the dominant factor in the committee is the Palestinian Authority,” he continues — arguing that, since Netanyahu said he was in complete coordination with Trump, he either “agreed behind our backs that Turkey, Qatar, and the Palestinian Authority would be in Gaza, or Trump doesn’t give a damn about you.”
“When the State of Israel is forced to return to fighting in Gaza — every soldier who is called up to the reserves will know — it is because of your political failure. Absolute failure,” Lapid tells Netanyahu, arguing that, after two years of war and a Qatari “influence operation” being run in the Prime Minister’s Office, “we are returning in Gaza not to the starting point, but to a point much worse than at the beginning.”
The next election will hinge on which leaders can be trusted and “you can no longer tell voters that they can trust you. You used to be able to, you can no longer,” Lapid continues.
“Not after October 7, not after Qatargate, not while you are promoting a disgraceful evasion law when the IDF is screaming that it lacks fighters and our children are being killed and injured by the thousands,” the opposition leader says. “This is what the elections will be about.”
Lapid asserts that it is in Israel’s interests to allow Egypt to “manage Gaza for the next 15 years.”
The opposition leader says that what Netanyahu “achieved in Gaza is the worst possible result: Hamas with 30,000 armed men. It is not disarming. Its plan is that in the end, it will give a few rusty missiles and the world will say, ‘Here, they have disarmed their offensive weapons.'”
Lapid says that “for a year, I have been telling you, the right way is to let Egypt manage Gaza for the next 15 years. Turkey and Qatar are the ideological partners of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt is the bitterest enemy of the Muslim Brotherhood. We know how to manage security cooperation with the Egyptians. We have done it in Sinai against ISIS for the past few years,” Lapid argues.
The Times of Israel Community.