War cabinet minister Gadi new elections needed to restore public trust; warns Entebbe-like op to save hostages in Gaza ‘will not happen,’ only way in near term is through deal.
Eisenkotsays a former IDF chief of staff, appeared to criticize Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s management of the ongoing war with Hamas in Gaza, suggesting in an interview Thursday that talk of complete victory over the terror group was unrealistic and indicating that new elections should be held within months to restore public trust in government following the devastating October 7 attacks.
Eisenkot, sat down for a wide-ranging interview with Channel 12’s Uvda program that also included a conversation about the personal toll the war has taken on him and his family. Eisenkot’s son, Master Sgt. (res.) Gal Meir Eisenkot, 25, was killed while fighting in Gaza in early December, followed by his nephew, Sgt. Maor Cohen Eisenkot, 19, a day later.
The interview with Eisenkot aired hours after Netanyahu rejected the idea of holding elections in the middle of a war that he has said could well continue into 2025, and vowed to “bring complete victory” over Hamas in response to the Gaza-ruling terror group’s October 7 attacks, when thousands of terrorists went on a killing spree across southern Israel, massacring 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking some 240 as hostages.
“Whoever speaks of absolute defeat is not speaking the truth,” Eisenkot said in the interview. “That is why we should not tell stories… Today, the situation already in the Gaza Strip is such that the goals of the war have not yet been achieved.”
Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in Gaza and remove the terror group as a threat to Israelis, but has come under criticism for not having a post-war plan for Gaza, amid a mounting death toll in the Palestinian enclave. Israel has also promised to secure the return of the hostages.
Eisenkot’s National Unity party agreed to join Netanyahu’s coalition on an emergency basis in a demonstration of political unity after the October 7 terror onslaught.
Asked whether Israel’s current leadership is telling the public the truth, Eisenkot responded simply, “No,” and appeared to take a jab at Netanyahu’s refusal so far to take direct responsibility for the October 7 intelligence, military and leadership failures.
“I am already at the stage and at an age where I do not trust this or that leader with my eyes closed, and I judge a man by his decisions and the way he leads the country,” he said.
Eisenkot said alleged failures in the chain of command “does not absolve [him] of responsibility,” a likely reference to Netanyahu’s previous claims that he was not warned by security chiefs about an impending Hamas attack, and that all security chiefs had consistently assured him the terror group was deterred.
He also appeared to criticize Netanyahu’s refusal to hold high-level discussions regarding post-war planning in Gaza.
“You have to show leadership in the ability to tell the truth to people, the ability to chart a path,” he told Uvda.
“The goals of the war have not yet been achieved, but the [number of soldiers on the ground] is now more limited… You have to think about what’s next,” he said.
Eisenkot also said elections should be held in the coming months to renew the public’s trust in leadership.
“It is necessary, within a period of months, to return the Israeli voter to the polls and hold elections in order to renew trust because right now there is no trust,” said Eisenkot.
s a democracy, the State of Israel needs to ask itself after such a serious event, ‘How do we continue from here with a leadership that has failed us miserably?’” Eisenkot continued.
Pressed to respond to Netanyahu’s claim that elections in the middle of the war would harm public unity, Eisenkot responded, “The lack of trust from the Israeli public in his government is no less serious.”
In the candid interview, his first since his son was killed in Gaza, the usually laconic Eisenkot said he and National Unity leader Benny Gantz, also a former IDF chief of staff, prevented Israel from preemptively attacking the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon in the days after the murderous October 7 attacks.
Eisenkot said that on October 11, Israel was on the verge of striking Hezbollah but he and Gantz managed to convince officials in the war cabinet to hold off.
“I think our presence there prevented Israel from making a grave strategic mistake,” Eisenkot said.
“If — according to the publications — a decision was made to attack Lebanon, we would have realized [Hamas’s Gaza leader Yahya] Sinwar’s strategic vision of immediately bringing about a regional war,” he said.
“We would have immediately brought the entire axis in Syria, Iraq, Iran, with [the war with] Hamas, which caused us the greatest damage since the establishment of the state, would have become a secondary arena,” he said.
The Israel-Lebanon frontier has seen daily fighting but has stopped short of an all out war.
This week, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said that “the likelihood of it happening in the coming months is much higher than it was in the past.”
‘The alternative is hell’
Asked about the death last month of his youngest son Gal, Eisenkot said, “The mornings and nights have become more difficult, but for me at least, there is no alternative because I know that the alternative is bad personally, bad as a family, and therefore, it’s something I have to remind myself of every day. I feel I have to [keep going]. The alternative is hell.”
Gal Eisenkot was killed after a bomb exploded in a tunnel shaft near soldiers in the Jabaliya camp in northern Gaza on December 7, 2023. He was rushed in grave condition to a hospital in Israel, where he died of his injuries.
Eisenkot said he knew that Gal, a member of the 551st Brigade’s 699th Battalion, and his crew “were going on a mission to take over buildings, which would allow access to the [Hamas] leadership, where there would be hostages [and hostages’] bodies.”
It is believed that 132 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza — not all of them alive — after 105 civilians were released from Hamas captivity during a weeklong truce in late November. Four hostages were released prior to that, and one was rescued by troops. The bodies of eight hostages have also been recovered and three hostages were mistakenly killed by the military last month.
The IDF has confirmed the deaths of 27 of those still held by Hamas, citing new intelligence and findings obtained by troops operating in Gaza. One more person is listed as missing since October 7, and their fate is still unknown.
On the remaining hostages, Eisenkot told Uvda that there will be no Entebbe-like operation to save them.
A daring rescue like the 1976 operation by an Israeli elite commando squad that saved 98 hostages from Palestinian and German terrorists in Entebbe, Uganda “will not happen,” he said.
On June 27, 1976, the terrorists hijacked an Air France jet flying from Tel Aviv to Paris diverting to Entebbe airport in Uganda, where the hijackers were welcomed by dictator Idi Amin. The legendary, storied mission claimed the lives of four hostages and that of Yoni (Yonatan) Netanyahu, Netanyahu’s older brother, who led the rescue squad.
Entebbe hostages come home, July 4, 1976. (IDF archives)
Eisenkot said the hostages taken by Hamas on October 7 are “spread out in such a way,” mainly underground, that the “probability after Ori Megidish, is extremely low.”
Pvt. Ori Megidish was rescued in late October by the IDF and the Shin Bet, days after Israel launched its ground operation into Gaza. She remains the only hostage of the remaining 132 abductees taken on October 7 to have been rescued through a military operation.
Troops “are still making every effort and looking for every opportunity [to save hostages] but the likelihood is low, and to say that [it’ll happen] is a delusion,” said Eisenkot.
Israelis mark the first birthday of Kfir Bibas held hostage by Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip, at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, January 18, 2024 (Miriam Alster/Flash90)
“It needs to be said, bravely, that… it’s not possible to return the hostages, alive, in the near term, without a deal,” he says, blasting “anyone trying to sell fantasies to the public.”
Eisenkot said a pause to the fighting in Gaza “for a certain amount of time” will likely be required as part of any potential deal, pointing to the weeklong, Qatar-brokered agreement secured in late November.
He said the next pause will likely be longer “by three or four times but after that, the war objectives will still be in effect.”
LINK: https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-challenge-to-pm-eisenkot-says-talk-of-absolute-defeat-of-hamas-a-tall-tale/
