From the Liveblog of
Saturday, May 30, 2026
Slamming government, Bennett and Lapid call for ‘powerful response’ to Hezbollah attacks
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Former prime minister Naftali Bennett calls for military action against Hezbollah in Lebanon, sharply criticizing Prime Minister Benjmain Netanyahu after the Iran-backed terror group fired repeated rocket and drone salvos at the north over Shabbat.
“The government is returning us to the contemptible policy of containment and normalizing an intolerable and unacceptable situation,” Bennett writes. “Over the weekend, sirens were heard every 20 minutes across the north and people were forced to seek shelter. This is not victory.”
“Dahiyeh must tremble until security returns to the north,” he declares, referring to the Shi’ite majority suburb of Beirut that is known as a Hezbollah stronghold.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid echoes Bennett, saying that the attacks cannot go without a “powerful response.”
“Israel is not a protectorate and the responsibility for Israeli citizens’ security lies only with the Israeli government,” he says.
Yair Golan, chairman of the left-wing The Democrats party, also tears into the government over the attacks.
He shares one of Netanyahu’s campaign videos from 2019 — in which the premier urges people at a beach to back right-wing parties for security reasons — clipped together with footage of frightened beachgoers running for cover in the northern coastal city of Nahariya during a rocket attack.
The Times of Israel Community.