Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has invited his close confidante and former top aide, Ron Dermer, to recent consultations in an effort to calm ministers pushing for intensive military action against Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Channel 12 news reports.
“This is a real emergency,” Dermer, a former Israeli ambassador to the US who has worked to forge close ties between Netanyahu and the Trump administration, is quoted as saying. “The situation isn’t easy; we cannot make it worse. Trump can’t perceive Israel as being responsible for the efforts to reach a final deal with Iran failing.”
The network also cites an unnamed minister lashing out at the US president, referring to him as “the ginger” while calling for tougher action after four soldiers were killed in southern Lebanon, saying that if Israel doesn’t act now “we won’t succeed [in doing so] later.”
“This is the time to formulate the rules of the game, before they are ultimately formulated for us.”
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