A retired Israeli general, who was hailed a hero after rescuing his family from a kibbutz during the Hamas attack, has called on Binyamin Netanyahu to resign as prime minister.
“The British in World War II replaced Chamberlain with Churchill,” Noam Tibon told Israel’s Channel 12 television network. “We have to win. That is more important than Netanyahu.”
Tibon added that Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving leader, was the only senior official not to accept blame for failing to prevent the raid that left more than 1,400 people dead.
“There are people who are to blame for the failures: the [military] chief of staff has already taken responsibility, and I have no doubt that at the end of the campaign, he and all those in the IDF [Israel Defence Forces] responsible for this failure will go home. The head of the Shin Bet [internal intelligence agency] has already taken responsibility and I’m sure there’ll be a similar process there. The only one who has not taken responsibility is Binyamin Netanyahu,” Tibon said.
Tibon told Channel 12 he believed 80 per cent of Israelis did not believe Netanyahu — who has built his political reputation on being the best guarantor of Israel’s security — when he said he would crush Hamas. He added that 90 per cent of Israelis did not believe he could protect their families.
Advertisement
“People have lost their sense of security in the past three weeks,” he said. “I say to Netanyahu: take responsibility. Resign now. It will help the campaign. The people need to feel security, they need to be sure we are going to be victorious. I don’t think he can lead us to victory.”
On October 7, Tibon, 62, received a call from his son, a journalist at the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, who could hear that Kibbutz Nahal Oz was under attack. Amir Tibon, his wife and two daughters were trapped in their home’s safe room, but could hear about 20 Hamas terrorists outside.
“I understood the situation. I prepared to die,” Amir Tibon said. He called his father, who drove from Tel Aviv armed only with a pistol. On the way, he joined an Israeli unit in a firefight against Hamas militants and took the gun of an Israeli soldier who was killed. Moving to other sites, including Be’eri and the Re’im music festival where more than 270 people died, he reached Nahal Oz in the afternoon to save his family.
Netanyahu has faced intense criticism in the face of the attacks. He was forced to apologise after appearing to blame the military and security agencies for failing to stop them.
The comments, aired in since deleted post on Twitter/X, came as Israeli forces were entering Gaza to fight Hamas after three weeks of air and artillery attacks.
Advertisement
In a subsequent post, Netanyahu apologised, saying: “I was wrong.”
