Yair Lapid: There is popular support for the return of Israeli prisoners and ending the Gaza war
Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid said on Tuesday that there is unprecedented popular support for the return of prisoners in Gaza and ending the war on the Palestinian enclave.
“The prime minister (Benjamin Netanyahu) must do what is good for the State of Israel, not what is good for his political group,” he added in an interview with local radio station 103 FM.
Lapid continued, “The fact that the kidnapped (Israeli prisoners in Gaza) haven’t yet returned to their homes is a failure of the current government”.
He added, “There is unprecedented popular support for the return of the kidnapped and ending the war, and it also has the support of the opposition”.
He called for the establishment of an alternative government to Hamas in Gaza, saying, “If you don’t start to find an alternative inside Gaza, Hamas will always return, just as Hamas is filling the ranks even today… Why? Because the government is afraid of finding an alternative political system”.
Lapid considered, “the State of Israel has no security interest in Gaza, and our presence there today means that we aren’t concluding a comprehensive hostage deal, and this contradicts the political interest of the state”.
He added, “We should have determined months ago the international coalition that we wanted to bring into Gaza,” without further details.
Yair Lapid asked, “Do we want war forever?”
The opposition and the families of Israeli prisoners accuse Netanyahu of obstructing an agreement to preserve his position, as extremist ministers, including National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, threaten to leave the government and bring it down if it accepts an end to the genocide in Gaza.
