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15 Jul. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday called on Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid to denounce calls and incitement to violence against him in order to avoid an attack like the attempted assassination of US presidential candidate Donald Trump on Saturday.
“It can happen because there is incitement to violence and the murder of elected officials, of ministers, of the prime minister, of his family,” Netanyahu said in an interview with Israel’s Channel 14 television, his second interview with the network in the past month.
“I would like him to act as I did, to speak out against these things. When I was the leader of the opposition, I spoke out against these things. He has done nothing,” she reproached.
These provocations and hatred have reached levels “that we have never known before,” according to Netanyahu, who has warned that the location of his family is being published, which has led to them being threatened by the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas). “Nobody is doing anything about it,” he lamented.
Netanyahu has urged Israeli Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara and security forces to “act against these crimes that could lead to political assassination.”
The Israeli president also referred to Saturday’s attack on Hamas military chief in Gaza, Mohamed Deif, which killed at least 90 people, according to data from the Gaza authorities. “There are interesting indications” that the attack on Deif was successful. “I do not want to say anything categorically until we receive more information,” he added.
Netanyahu believes that this attack facilitates an agreement on the hostages. “Hamas is weak. The more you attack it, the more you move towards an agreement. That is what has changed (…). After months in which they believed they were safe, the Israel Defense Forces have gone strong to the Philadelphia Corridor, they have conquered the Rafah crossing, they have killed hundreds of terrorists there, they have killed hundreds of terrorists in the center of the Gaza Strip. This pressure and the firmness of the political class, mine, is leading them to change little by little, to surrender, or at least to be more flexible,” he argued.
For all these reasons, he believes that “we have to increase the pressure even more now.” “The more we increase the pressure, the more hostages we will be able to free in the first phase and the closer we get to eliminating Hamas,” he added.
He has thus promised to retain Israeli military forces in the Philadelphia Corridor despite recent statements by Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on a withdrawal of Israeli forces from the border between Gaza and Egypt.
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