BICOM

Senior Israeli politicians issued statements yesterday to defend their actions before and during the Gaza war of 2014 in order to pre-empt severe criticism expected in a State Comptroller’s report today.

Israel’s State Comptroller Joseph Shapira has examined how Israel’s political and military leadership assessed and tackled the threat from Hamas tunnels. He also investigated the performance of the security cabinet before, and during, Operation Protective Edge in 2014 and its decision making process.

Leaked excerpts of the report have criticised the army’s lack of preparedness and the management of the conflict by political leaders. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, then Defence Minister Moshe Ya’alon and former IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz are all expected to be heavily criticised.

Yesterday, Netanyahu told Likud MKs that Operation Protective Edge had been a success, saying: “We hit Hamas with the hardest blow they have ever received.” He added that: “No cabinet in the history of the country was more briefed”.

Ya’alon issued a statement on Sunday saying: “They’ll say that we didn’t know, that we didn’t tell them [about the tunnels]… And the biggest lie of all? That we weren’t prepared and we lost. That’s nonsense.”

Several hundred reserve officers and soldiers have signed a letter of support for Gantz, who defended the intelligence assessment of Hamas tunnels, telling Yediot Ahronot that “I am ready to go to the next campaign with the same intelligence that we had in the last one”.

Opposition leader and Zionist Union head Isaac Herzog said yesterday that the State Comptroller’s report “reveals how the Prime Minister and his security cabinet failed to understand the threats, to set a strategy”.

Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid, who was a senior Government minister during the 2014 Gaza conflict said: “What is more worrying than the mistakes is the denial… the attempt to deal with public perception… comes at the expense of national security.”

Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who was Foreign Minister in 2014, criticised the discourse surrounding the report.

He said: “None of the announcements by politicians in recent days dealt with drawing lessons but rather in settling scores and making mutual accusations.”