Bring home hostages, deal with Hezbollah and go back to Philadelphi as needed, Gantz says in rejoinder to PM
Lazar Berman is The Times of Israel's diplomatic reporter
National Unity party leader Benny Gantz says that Gaza must be sealed off from Egypt, but disputes Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claim that not permanently holding the Philadelphi Corridor will hamstring troops or represent an existential threat to the state.
Netanyahu argued last night that Israel would be unable to retake the area if troops pulled out, but Gantz says it’s possible.
“At the first cabinet meeting of the war, I said that kids who haven’t even started 9th Grade yet will have to fight in Gaza. That’s our reality. Anyone who thinks we won’t be able to return to fight [in Gaza], anyone who thinks that [Hamas leader Yahya] Sinwar will raise his hands [in surrender] and accept an arrangement for years, is still sleeping on October 6,” Gantz says.
“I’m telling you the truth, citizens of Israel: Just as we went into Gaza with the ground operation when he [Netanyahu] hesitated, just as we went ahead with the framework for the return of the hostages that he tried to play for time [in November], just as we returned to fight as we needed too after that previous framework, so too, exactly, we will return to the Philadelphi Corridor if and when necessary, just as we will return to Zeitoun and Khan Younis and every other place,” says Gantz, a former head of the Israel Defense Forces.
“If Netanyahu does not understand that everything has changed after October 7, if he doubts that Sinwar will be eliminated and we’ll always get to where we need to, if he is not strong enough to stand up to international pressure,” says Gantz, “he should resign and head home.”
While acknowledging that controlling the corridor is important to thwart arms smuggling into the Strip, Gantz argues that leaving troops there would leave them vulnerable to attacks and won’t stop tunnel building. IDF troops deployed in isolated watchtowers along the narrow strip would be “sitting ducks,” he says.
Israel’s security establishment has accepted a plan for an underground system to stop smuggling tunnels, Gantz says, accusing Netanyahu of knowingly refusing to advance the plan or meet Egypt’s president on the matter.
“The story isn’t Philadelphi,” he says, “but the lack of true strategic decisions.”
He tells Netanyahu to be “very careful” when scaring people by “throwing around the term ‘existential threat’. True, our enemies want to destroy us, and in the past year, under your government and your responsibility, our enemies indeed managed to carry out the idea of invading Israeli territory, capturing communities, and activating a ring of fire around us from many fronts.” But the IDF must and can face up to this, with the proper infrastructure and resources, and with the “advancing of broad regional and international alliances.”
“The Philadelphi Corridor is an operational challenge, but it is not an existential threat to the State of Israel.”
Rather, he says, Iran and its axis of proxies and allies pose the real existential threat, and should be the focus of Israel’s military attention. He also urges a shift toward the north, where Hezbollah attacks have forced tens of thousands from their homes.
A hostage deal must be finalized, he says.
“The important thing is that we reach a deal to bring the hostages home and we implement it,” Gantz tells the briefing. “We must ensure that an underground barrier is built along the Philadelphi Corridor and internalize that we have to release damned murderers.”
Gantz concludes by telling Netanyahu he “is no longer capable of confronting the real existential threat,” and repeats his call for new elections.
Answering questions, Gantz says there is an inherent contradiction in Netanyahu’s central claim last night that he can and must resist international pressure so that Israel remains deployed at the Philadelphi Corridor, but that international pressure would prevent a return to the corridor if Israel left it now in the context of a hostage deal.
“As I said, if there is a need to return and again take control of the [Philadelphi] Corridor, we’ll rightly have to do so. Netanyahu can’t claim that he is strong and tough enough to remain there [now], but not strong and tough enough to go back there [later],” says Gantz.
Retaking the corridor would be a “serious operation” for the IDF, “but this is not the existential threat to the State of Israel” that Netanyahu depicted.
