Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday railed against growing criticism from top ally the US against his leadership amid the devastating war with Hamas, describing calls for a new election as “wholly inappropriate.”
In recent days, US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish official in the country and a strong Israel supporter, called on Israel to hold a new election, saying Netanyahu had “lost his way.”
US President Joe Biden voiced support for Schumer’s “good speech,” and earlier accused Netanyahu of hurting Israel, because of the huge civilian death toll in Gaza.
Photo: AFP
Netanyahu told Fox News that Israel never would have called for a new US election after the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001, and denounced Schumer’s comments as inappropriate.
“We’re not a banana republic,” he said. “The people of Israel will choose when they will have elections, and who they’ll elect, and it’s not something that will be foisted on us.”
When asked by CNN whether he would commit to a new election after the war ends, Netanyahu said: “I think that’s something for the Israeli public to decide.”
The US, which has provided key military and diplomatic support to Israel, has also expressed concerns about a planned Israeli assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where about 1.4 million displaced Palestinians are sheltering.
US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told Fox the US still has not seen an Israeli plan for Rafah.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, after meeting with Netanyahu on Sunday, warned that “the more desperate the situation of people in Gaza becomes, the more this begs the question: No matter how important the goal, can it justify such terribly high costs, or are there other ways to achieve your goal?”
Germany is one of Israel’s closest allies in Europe and, given memories of the Holocaust, often treads carefully when criticizing Israel.
Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, in Washington for St Patrick’s Day, said during a White House reception that the Irish people were “deeply troubled” by what is unfolding in Gaza.
He said there was much to learn from Ireland’s peace process and the critical US involvement in it.
Varadkar said he is often asked why the Irish are so empathetic to the Palestinians.
“We see our history in their eyes. A story of displacement, dispossession, and national identity questioned and denied forced emigration, discrimination and now hunger,” he said.
Meanwhile, Israeli forces early yesterday launched an operation in and around Gaza’s largest hospital, al-Shifa, with witnesses reporting airstrikes and tanks near the complex crowded with patients and displaced people.
The pre-dawn raid came at a time of growing concern over a looming Israeli ground invasion of Gaza’s crowded far-southern city of Rafah, and as international mediators and envoys readied to meet in Qatar yesterday to revive stalled truce talks.
A meeting between Israel’s Mossad chief David Barnea, Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani and Egyptian officials “is expected to take place today,” a source said on condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the talks.
The Israeli military told Gazans to immediately evacuate from al-Shifa in Gaza City after it launched the raid based on what the army termed intelligence “indicating the use of the hospital by senior Hamas terrorists.”
Witnesses told Agence France-Presses that the Israeli forces had dropped Arabic-language leaflets with the same evacuation instructions and a warning that “You are in a dangerous combat zone!”
The health ministry of the Hamas-run Gaza Strip said residents near the hospital in the largely devastated city had reported dozens of casualties who could not be helped “due to the intensity of gunfire and artillery shelling.”
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