Israel Is Too Soft With Gaza on Brink of War, Netanyahu Rival Says

(Bloomberg) -- Israel must strike harder at Hamas and shoot to kill any Palestinian who tries to break through the Gaza Strip border fence or launches arson balloons, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet said.

Naftali Bennett, Israel’s education minister and leader of the Jewish Home religious party, spoke in an interview as seven months of confrontation in Gaza once again edged closer to war. Israeli fighter jets struck targets across the territory early Wednesday after a Palestinian rocket hit a house in the southern city of Beersheba, and another landed in the sea near Tel Aviv.

“We haven’t shown enough of a steel fist there,” Bennett, a longtime political rival within Netanyahu’s governing coalition, said Tuesday at his Tel Aviv office. “We’ve been mighty soft on the fence, and that softness invites an increase in attacks.”

Election Talk

Israeli politicians have been jockeying to see who can talk toughest against Gaza’s Islamic militant Hamas rulers as speculation about early elections swells. Violence from Gaza has mounted since a campaign of mass protests against Israel was launched in late March, at times threatening to reach the point of war. Bennett criticized Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman this month, saying his policies had failed and were jeopardizing residents of Israel’s south.

Ahmad Tibi, an Arab member of the Israeli parliament, said Bennett was effectively advocating war crimes. “He’s asking to shoot more and commit more war crimes,” Tibi said in a text message.

The Gaza protest campaign has included frequent attempts to cut through the 10-foot (3-meter) wire fence to enter Israel. Gaza residents have also sent flaming balloons and kites over the border, setting fire to thousands of acres of forest and agricultural land.

Israeli snipers deployed on the border have killed more than 200 Palestinians, including seven last week, and injured thousands. One Israeli soldier was also killed by sniper fire from Gaza.

Israel’s approach to Gaza should be, “Get the hell out of our territory,” Bennett said. “Stop infiltrating Israel, and if you do infiltrate, you’re risking your life.”

At an Oct. 13 funeral for a man killed by Israeli troops, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh called on Palestinians to keep fighting until the blockade against Gaza is lifted. “The blood of the martyrs brings us closer to victory over the Zionist enemy,” he said.

Mediation Efforts

Egyptian and United Nations diplomats were in Gaza on Wednesday to try to broker an agreement that would prevent the current round of violence from boiling over. Israel and Hamas have fought three wars over the past decade, most recently in 2014, that have left thousands of Palestinians and dozens of Israelis dead.

Bennett, 46, who harshly criticized Netanyahu for letting the 2014 war drag on for seven weeks, has pushed for a swift, punishing air campaign focused on destroying Hamas military bases and weapons factories. While members of his party -- many of them former residents of Gaza’s Jewish settlements -- advocate reoccupying the territory Israel held for 38 years, Bennett says such a step would be imprudent. “It would be like putting your hand in a beehive,” he said.

‘Serious Blow’

Netanyahu scheduled a meeting Wednesday of the policy-setting security cabinet to discuss the situation in Gaza. He said Hamas must curtail its attacks against Israel or face a “very painful” response. Liberman said Israel is prepared to strike a “serious blow” against Hamas that could cripple its assault capabilities for the next five years.

Bennett, who’s proposed annexing most of the West Bank to Israel while offering the Palestinians “autonomy on steroids,” said he would oppose any effort to establish a Palestinian state, even if it’s included in President Donald Trump’s forthcoming peace plan.

His experience as a high-tech executive taught him the value of testing a product through a pilot program, and only then disseminating it more widely. For Palestinian statehood, “we have a pilot. It’s called Gaza,” Bennett said. “It would be ridiculous -- crazy -- to have such a failed pilot and then to go ‘live.’ ”

--With assistance from Saud Abu Ramadan.

To contact the reporters on this story: Jonathan Ferziger in Tel Aviv at jferziger@bloomberg.net;Michael S. Arnold in Tel Aviv at marnold48@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Lin Noueihed at lnoueihed@bloomberg.net, Andrew Langley, Paul Abelsky

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