Israel’s Netanyahu ‘unfit’ to run Gaza war: Opposition leader

By Abdelraouf Arnaout

JERUSALEM (AA) – The Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is unfit to run the Gaza war, opposition leader Yair Lapid said Monday.

“The State of Israel needs change now, and there is no possibility of waiting any longer,” Lapid said on X.

“This government does not know how to manage a war, and it is pushing us into a deep economic crisis that hurts every citizen’s pocket, and has landed us in The Hague,” he added.

South Africa has filed a lawsuit before the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of perpetrating genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip during its deadly military offensive. It also requested provisional measures from the court to protect the Palestinian people, including by calling upon Israel to immediately halt its military attacks.

“This government is not fit to manage the war, and Netanyahu is not fit to run the country,” Lapid said.

The opposition leader said that his party is ready to vote in favor of an alternative government to be led by another prime minister.

Calls have grown for holding fresh elections in Israel amid criticism of Netanyahu over his failure to acknowledge responsibility for a cross-border attack by Hamas on Oct. 7.

Opinion polls conducted by Israeli media in the past few days suggested that if early elections were held now, Netanyahu would be unable to form a government, while former Defense Minister and war cabinet member Benny Gantz is considered the most likely to succeed.

Israel has launched a deadly offensive on the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7, killing at least 24,100 people and injuring 60,834 others, while nearly 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed.

The deadly onslaught has left 85% of Gaza’s population internally displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave’s infrastructure was damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

*Writing by Ahmed Asmar