2023-11-17 22:25:54
A serious crisis with consequences whose severity will be seen in the coming hours, broke out in the government of Benjamin Netanyahu due to the furious opposition of his ultra-Orthodox partners who described “shameful” the decision to deliver fuel to the Gaza Strip in the middle of the war with the terrorist group Hamas.
The war cabinet was the body that unanimously accepted this Friday a recommendation from the military general staff and Israel’s security service, Shin Bet, to authorize the entry of two tanker trucks daily with fuel to the Strip.
The head of the National Security Council, Tzachi Hanegbi, explained that the measure is intended to “prevent the spread of diseases.” There are reports that the overcrowding of the more than 2 million inhabitants of the enclave, without water, food and medicine and absence of bathrooms, among other basic needs, triggers all types of infections and can end in epidemics.
The war cabinet stated that the fuel responds to the needs expressed by the United Nations “aimed at supporting water and sewage infrastructure.” […]provided they do not reach Hamas.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Reuters
But the measure immediately sparked an extremely harsh complaint from the allies. more right-wing of the government. The deputy speaker of the Knesset, Parliament, Nissim Vaturi, repudiated the measure and urged “burn Gaza.”
In a message on the networks he questioned “all this concern about whether or not there is Internet in Gaza shows that we have not learned anything. Burn Gaza now, nothing less!”. In another message he claimed: “Do not allow the entry of fuel, do not allow the entry of water until the hostages are returned!”
The Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich, an ultra-Orthodox who leads the Religious Zionist Party, demanded to immediately change the components of the war cabinet, which is a lower body than the general cabinet, to include the heads of all the parties in that forum, that is, say the far-right formations.
“Unacceptable”
Smotrich wrote that the war cabinet’s actions were “unacceptable” and called on Netanyahu to stop the transfer as soon as possible.
He also said that the decision “spit in the face to the IDF (Israeli military forces) soldiers, to the hostages and their families, and to the grieving families. It is also contrary to the decision of the political and security cabinet and is therefore illegal. “This is not how you win a war, this is not how you destroy Hamas, and this is how we will not return the hostages.”
The war cabinet must “stop this scandal iimmediately and prevent the fuel from entering the Strip.” And he maintained that sending fuel to Gaza “transmits weakness, injects oxygen to the enemy and allows (Hamas top leader Yahya) Sinwar to sit comfortably in an air-conditioned bunker, watch the news and continue manipulating Israeli society and the families of the hostages.”
Smotrich considers that the entry of the fuel discusses a strategy that should consist of “beating the leaders of Hamas, also abroad, without mercy, until the last survivors there beg us to accept our hostages unconditionally. This is the only way to destroy Hamas, return the hostages and restore the safety of the citizens. From Israel.”
The minister, who has had other controversies for retaining without legal rights the tax collection budget that must be delivered to the Palestinian Authority, the secular authority of the West Bank for the payment of salaries and general expenses, did not make in his statement no comment about the humanitarian crisis enveloping the population of Gaza and the danger of disease.
Netanyahu announced this Friday that he will meet with his cabinet on Saturday night. It is a serious problem, because not only Smotrich but other leaders with an ultranationalist profile, such as the Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir, have shown signs of depart eventually from the government.
This controversial official agreed with the head of Finance by maintaining that “it makes no sense to give humanitarian gifts to the enemy”, a notion that has been defended by other leaders of that area who affirm that “there are no innocents in Gaza.” The departure of any of these parties would imply the fall of the president, which paradoxically is what critics of the premier and his supremacist allies demand in the streets.
The centrist opposition leader Benny Gantz, who is part of the emergency government organized due to the war, clarified that the decision to transfer fuel to the Strip It was based collectively on the opinion of all its members. “It is not about changing strategy, but about providing a specific response” to the crisis in the Strip, he explained.
The former Minister of Economy, Avigdor Liberman, rejected these arguments and attacked the government with the same line of confusing the civilian population of Gaza with the Hamas group by maintaining his disappointment “at the shipment of fuel without any humanitarian gesture towards the hostages and asked the “immediate cessation of anarchy.”
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