Livni: Netanyahu government is ‘preserving’ Hamas rule in Gaza

Israeli politicians from the opposition parties took aim at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday, criticizing the premier and his government for their handling of the ongoing violence along the Gaza border, their alleged failure to respond effectively to the threat posed by arson devices flown into Israel, and their inability to deter the terror organization Hamas, which rules the Palestinian enclave.

Opposition head Tzipi Livni, from the Zionist Union party, accused the government of “moving from a stated policy of defeating Hamas — which has failed — to a hidden policy of preserving its rule.”

“The government is choosing the worst option because it is the least politically risky,” she said during a speech at a legal convention in the southern Israeli city of Eilat, as quoted in Hebrew media reports. “Israel is conducting indirect negotiations with Hamas [for calm] instead of conducting direct talks with the Palestinian Authority [led by Mahmoud Abbas].”

“Hamas in a security threat, but there is no ‘threat’ for peace [with Hamas] from the government’s point of view,” she accused.

Livni said she was in favor of regime change in Gaza “by pragmatic actors until the full demilitarization [of the Strip] as a collaborative international goal.”

Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party said in response to Livni’s comments that she should “be more responsible and stop serving as the spokesperson for Abu Mazen [Abbas].”

MK Ofer Shelah, from Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party, also criticized Netanyahu on Saturday, saying at a cultural event in Shoham that the prime minister was the “only person responsible for this defeatist policy in Gaza.”

Shelah blasted leaks this week by cabinet ministers who are pointing the finger at Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot for what they described as the army’s overly complacent policy toward Gaza.

The leaks came after a tense meeting on Thursday by the 10-member security cabinet where several ministers lambasted the IDF chief for allowing an Israeli “loss of sovereignty” on the border, and what they called the military’s insufficient action against the balloon launchers.

Shelah said the leaks demonstrated that “this security cabinet was the most irresponsible cabinet since the founding of the state.” He also lashed out at Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, whom he said was “placing the responsibility on others like he isn’t defense minister.”

Since March 30, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have participated in a series of protests and riots dubbed the “Great March of Return,” which have mostly involved the burning of tires and rock-throwing along the security fence, but have also seen shooting attacks and bombings.

The protests have also seen Palestinians sending incendiary devices attached to balloons into Israeli territory, sparking fires that have scorched over 7,000 acres of land and caused millions of shekels in damage.

Some 155 Palestinians have been killed and thousands more have been injured in the clashes with IDF troops over these months, according to AP figures; Hamas, an Islamist terror group that seeks to destroy Israel, has acknowledged that dozens of the dead were its members. One Israeli soldier was shot dead by a sniper on the border earlier this year.

In recent weeks, Egyptian mediators have been trying to broker a truce between Israel and Hamas to stop the violence.

On Thursday, the top-level cabinet committee had ordered the military to step up reprisal attacks should border violence continue, but also to take a wait-and-see approach to allow Egyptian mediation efforts to succeed. Ministers said the IDF should ultimately adopt a zero-tolerance policy toward rocket attacks, arson balloons and rioting along the Israeli border, according to reports in Hebrew-language media.

Liberman had come to Eisenkot’s defense during the meeting and afterward, slamming the criticism of the IDF chief as “petty politics.”

Livni too defended Eisenkot, lambasting the cabinet ministers as “shameful, and our excellent chief of staff has to sit in front of it each day. [Eisenkot is] a responsible person who’s doing the best that can be done with irresponsible politicians,” she charged.

Speaking on Friday to Hadashot TV, Lapid called on the Israeli government to destroy the homes of the leaders of the Hamas terrorist movement in the Gaza Strip, declaring that the group’s top brass must pay a price for ongoing attacks against the Jewish state.

“Nobody wants war, but even those who want a [negotiated] armistice have to understand that if there is no real deterrence, armistice is not worth anything,” he said. “If we go to an arrangement where Hamas thinks that it won’t pay a heavy price for bombing Israel’s population, or for the [incendiary] balloons, or the violations along the [Gaza security] fence, then the armistice is worth nothing.”

The tensions between Israel and Gaza threatened to spill over into all-out war this week after a rocket with a 20-kilogram (44-pound) warhead exploded outside a house in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba early Wednesday morning, causing significant damage, but no injuries as the mother inside had rushed her children to their bomb shelter moments before.

A second rocket also landed in the sea, off the coast of the greater Tel Aviv area.

In response, the Israeli Air Force conducted strikes against some 20 targets in the Gaza Strip, including a border-crossing attack tunnel that entered Israeli territory from the Palestinian city of Khan Younis.