“It is not accidental that the cabinet has not resolved the issue of Hamas in the Gaza Strip after five months of war, and created unreal expectations for people. Fighting is still ongoing in the south and on the northern front,” Etzion said, according to Palestinian Sama news agency.
The former Israeli official was referring to the Netanyahu cabinet’s declared goal of eradicating Palestine’s Hamas resistance movement when the regime unleashed its devastating war on Gaza on October 7 in response to Hamas’s unprecedented Operation Al-Aqsa Storm in the southern Israeli-occupied territories earlier that day.
Since early October, the regime has also been engaged in fierce fighting with the Lebanese Hezbollah Resistance Movement in southern Lebanon, which borders the northern Israeli-occupied territories. Netanyahu’s cabinet has also spoken of a full-scale war with Lebanon as Hezbollah continues to fight the regime’s military in support of the Palestinians in Gaza.
Etzion, who previously served as head of planning policy at Israel’s foreign ministry as well, believes that neither of the wars would be short-term and the regime cannot resolve its problems by only adopting a military solution.
With the failed management of the cabinet, its refusal of talks over the post-war era and lack of cooperation with the US, no change will take place, he said, adding that Netanyahu’s cabinet is definitely aware of all these issues.
The Israelis need to have real understanding and expectations from the cabinet, and the cabinet must also stop telling lies to the people, the former Israeli official stressed.
His comments are the latest in a chorus of criticism against Netanyahu at home and abroad over the war on Gaza, which has been dragging on for months to only leave mass deaths and destruction in the besieged Palestinian territory where Hamas fighters are still battling Israeli forces, inflicting losses on them.
The regime's military has confirmed 246 deaths among its soldiers since it launched the ground invasion of Gaza on October 7. The latest such deaths took place on Saturday in the city of Khan Yunis, southern Gaza, according to Al Jazeera.
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