Members within Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition sharply criticized Israel’s decision to cancel strikes on Beirut at the urging of US President Donald Trump on Monday, calling on the premier to “say no” to Trump and strike in Lebanon with full force.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, a partner in Netanyahu’s coalition, sharply criticized the move, stating that “This is the time to tell our friend, President Trump – ‘no’.”
Addressing past remarks Netanyahu made, Ben-Gvir added: “You said that a strong prime minister tells the president of the United States ‘yes’ when possible, and ‘no’ when necessary.”
“Now is the time to do what is required and necessary to strike Hezbollah, to unshackle our fighters, and to restore security to the North.”
The criticism came after Trump said that Israel and Lebanon had agreed to halt strikes against one another, not long after Netanyahu had ordered the IDF to return to heavy attacks on Hezbollah’s Dahiyeh stronghold in Beirut on Monday morning.
Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz said that the initial strike order was given following increased Hezbollah rocket attacks on Israeli civilians throughout the North.
However, after speaking to Netanyahu, Trump announced that Israel had agreed that “there will be no troops going to Beirut, and any troops that are on their way have already been turned back.”
Saada: Israel must 'destroy and win'
MK Moshe Saada, who is a member of Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party, also criticized the cancellation of planned strikes in Beirut after Trump’s instruction.
“We should have acted, not now, but two weeks ago. What is happening here is that we are exercising restraint, buying quiet, and in the end, it blows up in our faces. We must not contain it; we need to destroy and win,” Saada said in a Tuesday interview with Ynet.
Opposition politicians slammed the decision to call off the strikes as well, warning that Netanyahu was harming Israel’s national security interests by following Trump’s directive.
Former IDF chief of staff and Yashar! Party leader Gadi Eisenkot called Trump’s directive “a humiliating demand, one that is blatantly unreasonable.”
Eisenkot added that Netanyahu “is the man who preached morals to everyone about the basic need to be a prime minister and know how to say ‘no’ to the president of the United States.”
“What Netanyahu, the government, and the cabinet are doing today is harming the national interests of the State of Israel out of weakness. And they should not tell stories about a connection to the US-Iran negotiations.
Northern Israel under attack
“Lebanon is here. Metula is under attack. Israeli communities are standing empty. This is unacceptable,” Eisenkot stated.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid accused Netanyahu of behaving as though Israel were a protectorate state of the US.
Lapid had called for a “powerful response” to the rocket fire from Lebanon on Saturday, writing that “the responsibility for the security of Israeli citizens lies solely with the Israeli government.”
Former prime minister and rival against Netanyahu in the upcoming elections, Naftali Bennett, wrote that the government had “lost control over Israeli sovereignty” and pledged to restore security to the citizens of Israel.
Bennett accused the government of trying to “normalize an intolerable and unacceptable situation” on Saturday evening, writing that the current coalition is “incapable.”
Leader of the Yisrael Beytenu party, MK Avigdor Liberman, called the move to halt the strikes in Lebanon “unacceptable.”
“Northern Israel has been under heavy shelling for days on end. Wounded soldiers, [many] dead, and the prime minister of Israel is waiting for approval from Trump to bomb the Dahiyeh.
“We are not a banana republic. We must flatten the Dahiyeh now and not stop until that building comes down.”
Yonah Jeremy Bob contributed to this report.