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A “forever war” will carry on in Gaza for as long as Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is in power, the country’s opposition leader has warned.
Yair Lapid, leader of opposition party Yesh Atid, said the Israeli prime minister was offering Israel “years of war and destruction” with no end date to the conflict.
It comes as a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas – that would also see the release of hostages held in Gaza – remains elusive. The war was triggered when Hamas launched a bloody attack inside Israel on 7 October, killing around 1,200 people and taking 250 hostages. In response, Israel has bombarded Gaza from the air and ground. More than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in the offensive, health officials in the strip have said.
Mr Netanyahu leads a coalition government propped up by far-right factions who are committed to destroying Hamas and continuing the war. On Wednesday, national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir called for an end to indirect ceasefire talks with Hamas. “A country whose six hostages are murdered in cold blood does not negotiate with the killers, but ends the talks, stops the transfer of fuel and electricity, and crushes them until they collapse,” he wrote on X/Twitter.
Mr Lapid said: “What Mr Netanyahu is saying, what his cabinet is telling us, is that we are in a new version of Lebanon [which shares a border with Israel].
“It took us 18 years to leave Lebanon and they are offering us the same thing: years of war, years of economic crisis, years of destruction and fear and violence.
“This is what the government is offering us. A war that will go on and on. A forever war that has and will never have an end date,” Mr Lapid said.
“It prefers the war. Because it frees it from the need to face the challenges. We do know how to face these challenges. We’ve done it before, we’ll do it again, better. It’s time to change the government and end the war,” he added.
Hundreds of thousands of protesters have taken to the streets of Israel in recent days after six hostages, including an American-Israeli citizen, were found dead on Sunday. They had been shot by Hamas militants just before soldiers were able to rescue them from a tunnel, Israel’s military said.
The protesters chanted “Now! Now!” and urged Mr Netanyahu to bring home the remaining 101 hostages, about a third of whom Israeli officials believe to be dead.
In response, the 74-year-old Mr Netanyahu has sought to deflect the building pressure. He has said “no one” can “preach to me” on the issue and claims that nobody has been more committed to returning hostages than he is.
On Monday, Mr Netanyahu said he was ready to carry out the first phase of the ceasefire – a plan that would include the release of some hostages and a partial pullout of Israeli troops from Gaza.
But he rejected a full withdrawal from the embattled region, saying he saw no other party that could control Gaza’s borders.
He has previously pledged “total victory” over Hamas and blamed it for the failure of the negotiations which have dragged on for months.
Meanwhile, the UN children’s agency has said a polio vaccination campaign in Gaza reached 189,000 children, surpassing its target and providing a “rare bright spot” in nearly 11 months of war. Unicef said more than 500 teams deployed across central Gaza this week, administering the vaccine to children under 10.
It said Israel and Hamas observed limited pauses in the fighting to facilitate the campaign. UN agencies now hope to expand the campaign to the harder-hit north and south of the territory. They hope to vaccinate a total of 640,000 children.
The campaign was launched after Gaza had its first reported polio case in 25 years – a 10-month-old boy, now paralysed in the leg.
