Yair Rosenberg
On Tuesday, Daniel Hagari, the chief spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces, did something extraordinary: He criticized the Israeli government. In recent days, Israeli troops have battled Hamas in parts of northern Gaza that had previously been cleared of enemy combatants. A reporter asked Hagari if the terrorist group had been able to reassert itself because the Israeli government had not set up any non-Hamas Palestinian administration for those areas.
The spokesman could have dodged the question. He did not. “There is no doubt that a governmental alternative to Hamas will create pressure on Hamas,” he replied, “but that is a question for the political echelon.”
Hagari’s polite but pointed critique of Israel’s leadership was a pebble. The avalanche came the next day. In a televised address yesterday, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant—a former general and current member of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party—publicly rebuked the government for failing to establish a postwar plan for Gaza. He then demanded that Netanyahu personally commit to Palestinian governance for the enclave, as opposed to Israeli settlement or occupation.
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