‘Tear Beirut apart’: Some politicians beat war drums after Majdal Shams rocket attack
As Smotrich says ‘Nasrallah should pay with his head’ and Ben Gvir demands ‘war in the north now,’ opposition leaders also call for an aggressive reaction to deadly strike
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
Politicians from coalition and opposition were unanimous Saturday in their demand for a fierce Israeli response to a Hezbollah rocket attack that killed 11 people in the northern Druze town of Majdal Shams, most of them children and teens.
The strike was the single deadliest Hezbollah attack on northern Israel since fighting there began in October.
Far-right ministers were the most belligerent in their reactions.
“For the deaths of little children, [Hezbollah chief Hassan] Nasrallah should pay with his head,” Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich tweeted,” asserting that it was “time for action” and that “Lebanon as a whole has to pay the price.”
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said that “since October 8th I have said that we are in a state of war in the north and the enemy needs to be defeated,” but Israeli decision-makers “avoided acknowledging that we are in a battle against Hezbollah for 10 months.” He called for “war in the north now!”
Since October 8, Hezbollah-led forces have attacked Israeli communities and military posts along the border on a near-daily basis, with the group saying it is doing so to support Gaza amid the war there.
Culture and Sport Minister Miki Zohar demanded that Israel “stop procrastinating and deal a fatal blow to Hezbollah,” arguing that “the more we postpone the campaign, the more painful will be the prices we pay.”
Members of the opposition also came out strongly in favor of retaliation against Hezbollah, with New Hope MK Michel Buskila demanding that Jerusalem “tear Beirut apart” and Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman declaring that Nasrallah must “pay the price” for his actions.
In an English-language post on X, National Unity party chairman and former war cabinet member Benny Gantz, who resigned from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition in June, pledged “wide support from outside the government for any determined and effective response that will restore security to the citizens of the north.”
On the 7th of October Hamas' massacring of children and kidnapping of innocent civilians did not discriminate between race, religion or ethnicity. All were guilty of the high crime of being Israeli.
As innocent Israeli children in the Druze village of Majdal Shams were murdered…
— בני גנץ – Benny Gantz (@gantzbe) July 27, 2024
In a statement, Opposition Leader Yair Lapid demanded that the government “put an end to abandonment of the north.”
Insisting that events “cannot go on like this,” the Yesh Atid chairman accused the prime minister of shirking his responsibilities, stating that “the fact that he has not yet decided on returning to Israel [from the US] is another shameful proof of his complete detachment and above all that he does not care about anything but himself.”
Netanyahu initially dithered on whether he would move up his flight back from Washington, but eventually announced he would be heading out a few hours earlier than planned. He was expected to land around noon Sunday. In a statement, his office argued he had “made the decision to move his return up as soon as the terrible disaster in Majdal Shams became known.”
MK Merav Michaeli, of the left-wing Labor, also insisted that “whoever launched these rockets must pay a heavy price.”
Asked if that meant Michaeli was calling for war in Lebanon, a spokesman for the former party chief said that she was calling for “a harsh but calculated response, which will not lead to escalation.”
As Foreign Minister Israel Katz said he was preparing for an international campaign “to obtain support and legitimacy for Israeli action in Lebanon,” President Isaac Herzog called on the international community not “to sit in silence in the face of Nasrallah’s terror attacks, which come at the behest of the Iranian empire of evil.”
Katz told the Times of Israel that Israel is “approaching the moment of an all-out war against Hezbollah and Lebanon.” He said Nasrallah would be destroyed along with his organization if such a war were to erupt, and warned that Lebanon would be severely damaged.
The Defense Ministry said on Saturday night that top military and security officials had presented Defense Minister Yoav Gallant with “options for action against Hezbollah” and that “Gallant determined the courses of action and instructed the defense establishment accordingly.” It did not elaborate.
In the wake of Saturday evening’s attack, coalition whip Ofir Katz of Likud announced that all nonessential bills would be removed from the Knesset agenda for Sunday, the final day of the summer legislative session.
“Following Hezbollah’s shocking massacre of the children of Majdal Shams, it was decided that only urgent government bills will be on the Knesset’s agenda tomorrow. Our hearts are with the residents and the entire Druze community,” he stated.
According to the public broadcaster Kan, one of the bills dropped from the agenda is a controversial Shas-backed proposal that seeks to grant the religious services minister the power to allocate additional funds to local religious councils around the country. Voting on the bill was already postponed more than once due to coalition infighting.
The coalition intends to try and pass the bill during the recess, the report said.
Yair Golan, head of the Labor-Meretz union The Democrats, said the Knesset recess must be canceled. “It’s inconceivable that tomorrow, a day of near-war in the north, of unimaginable burials, of war in Gaza, 115 hostages in Hamas’s hands, tens of thousands of displaced in the north and south, the Knesset will simply go on vacation.”
Emanuel Fabian and Lazar Berman contributed to this report.
