Zionist Union head says government must ‘initiate’ in its response to Gaza violence

Zionist Union chairman Avi Gabbay slams the response to recent violence on the Gaza border, saying that the government has failed to provide security to residents of the south of Israel.

“Yesterday we went to the Gaza border area and to Sderot. We met citizens and local leaders. We saw strong leadership there, but we didn’t see security,” he tells his faction meeting in the Knesset.

“We are part of a ongoing cycle of violence,” he says, “and the right wing government of Bennett, Netanyahu and Liberman is not bringing security to the people of Israel.”

Tensions along the Gaza border have been heightened in recent days, after terrorist groups in the coastal enclave last week launched over 100 mortar shells and rockets at southern Israel and the IDF retaliated by bombing over 65 Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad targets in the Strip.

Gabbay says it’s not enough for Israel to just respond to the mortar and rocket fire and must “initiate, initiate, initiate.”

“What we are doing now is not the Zionist way,” he charges, urging the government to “listen to the defense establishment, which is saying the same thing as us.”

— Raoul Wootliff