Liberman accuses PM of ‘funneling goods’ to Hamas at expense of Israeli citizens

By Sam Sokol 9 February 2026, 4:47 pm

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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"

Yisrael Beytenu chair Avigdor Lieberman (Second right) stands with activists from the Tzav 9 organization protesting the transfer of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, February 9, 2026. (Tsafrir Abayov/Flash90)

Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman accuses Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government of “returning to exactly the same failed concept that led to the disaster” of October 7.

Addressing the press ahead of his hawkish opposition party’s weekly faction meeting in the Knesset, Liberman discusses his visit to the Gaza border today, arguing that “the October 7 government is imposing a ‘Hamas tax’ on Israeli citizens and is funneling goods to it at the expense of Israeli citizens.”

“Today I arrived at the Kerem Shalom crossing together with MK Yulia Malinovsky and MK Sharon Nir. What we saw there is unimaginable! Hundreds of trucks entered the Gaza Strip, and at the same exact time, right near there, four terrorists came out of a hole in Rafah. There is not a day that Hamas does not violate the agreement,” he says.

The IDF announced this morning that troops killed four Palestinian gunmen who emerged from a tunnel and attacked soldiers in southern Gaza’s Rafah.

“The government is rehabilitating Gaza even before anyone is even talking about disarming Hamas,” Liberman says. “This government is unable to restore security: not to the residents of the Gaza envelope, not to IDF soldiers, nor to Israeli citizens within the country’s borders.

“We saw this yesterday in Ofakim, when clans went wild in the streets with chainsaws. There is no governance, no security, and no leadership,” he declares, referring to a violent incident in the southern city on Sunday in which residents threw stones and one person was filmed carrying a chainsaw.

According to Liberman, Hamas rules Gaza “completely” on its side of the ceasefire line. He argues that “there is no doubt” that October 7 would not have occurred if not for the 2005 Disengagement from Gaza.