Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opened Israel’s wartime Knesset session on Monday amid rocket fire on Jerusalem and elsewhere. He issued a warning to Hezbollah and Iran, urging them to remain on the sidelines of the fighting as Israeli forces prepare to launch a ground operation in the Gaza Strip to uproot Hamas.
Netanyahu called on the world to join Israel’s push to defeat Hamas and issued a stark warning to the Hezbollah terror group and its Iranian backers: “Don’t test us, you will be severely harmed.”
The prime minister also noted that Israel has begun to learn from the mistakes that led to Hamas’ deadly infiltration on October 7, saying: “The reasons for the disaster are being investigated… and we have begun to draw conclusions.”
Shortly after his remarks, massive rocket fire from Gaza into Jerusalem and other parts of the country forced lawmakers to leave the chamber to seek shelter, leading to a 40-minute delay in proceedings.
Get The Times of Israel’s Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories
By registering you agree to the terms and conditions
The email address is invalid or missing
Please try again. The email address is invalid or missing
Please try again.
The prime minister, later joined by President Isaac Herzog and opposition leader Yair Lapid, reiterated that “our goal is to defeat Hamas and overthrow it from its rule,” nine days after the terror group stormed Israel, killing over 1,300 people and nearly 4,000 injured and kidnapped around 200 hostages to the Gaza Strip.
Israeli society was fully focused on the war effort. There are currently 300,000 reserve soldiers mobilized, in addition to Israel’s estimated 150,000 to 180,000 strong standing army. In response to the war, the Knesset is preparing to postpone nationwide local elections, originally scheduled for October 31. The plenary session introduced a bill on Monday to postpone the elections, which take place every five years, to January 30, 2024. Two more votes are needed on this issue by the end of the month.
Knesset members and other parliamentary staff and staff gather in a bomb shelter as rocket sirens sound in Jerusalem, October 16, 2023. (Noam Revkin Fenton/Flash90)
The Knesset also put forward a first reading of a bill that would allow National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir to change the living conditions of security prisoners during hostilities. According to an announcement from his office last week, Ben Gvir is seeking to quickly increase prison capacity by housing inmates on mattresses instead of beds.
Describing Israel’s ongoing war against Hamas and its Gaza-based allies as an existential struggle against the forces of darkness, Netanyahu told the Knesset: “Even after 75 years, the war of independence is not yet over.”
Netanyahu reiterated that “we will win because our existence is at stake here” and called the conflict “a war between light and dark forces, between humanity and animality.”
He described Hamas as a new form of Nazis. And in reference to the Nazi era, he said he was taken to a house in a community attacked by Hamas and shown the first floor where the parents were killed and discovered “a hidden attic” in which The children hid and were also killed by Hamas gunmen.
Opposition leader Lapid, who said he would support Netanyahu’s war cabinet from the sidelines, vowed that Israel would “uproot Hamas” because “it is impossible to coexist with a murderous terrorist organization.”
He also said that Israel will move forward even if it receives international criticism.
“It will take time, it will require the use of great force. If the world doesn’t like it, don’t let it be. It was not the children of the world who were murdered; Our children were murdered,” Lapid told lawmakers.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid speaks at the opening session of the Knesset winter session at the Knesset plenum in Jerusalem on October 16, 2023. (Noam Revkin Fenton/Flash90)
Similarly, Herzog said Israel’s current war against terrorist groups in Gaza is not morally “complex” but is part of an international struggle to maintain free societies.
“Everyone talks about complexity, but this moment is not a complex moment. There is absolute good here and there is absolute evil here. There is light here and darkness here,” Herzog said.
Herzog thanked the United States for its public support and military assistance, adding: “We are not alone in this war. We wage war as part of the family of nations – all who strive for justice, peace and freedom – against an enemy who has proven that humanity and humanism are his enemy.”
Last year, Lapid warned and fought the plan by Netanyahu and his political allies to limit judicial limits on their own power, saying such an overhaul of the judiciary threatened Israel’s liberal democratic values. Herzog, whose position is intended to be above the fray of domestic political disputes, also criticized the coalition’s intentions to harm Israel’s democratic institutions.
While judicial changes and protests against them have been put aside since the outbreak of war, both leaders pointed to the need to heal painful social tears exacerbated by nine months of domestic infighting.
Netanyahu, for his part, praised Israel’s newfound “unity.”
However, Lapid directly linked the failure of Israel’s security apparatus to prevent or quickly repel Hamas’ deadly attack to forces within Israel that he said had weakened the country’s liberal democratic values.
“The Israeli system collapsed because it disconnected from its DNA. His values,” Lapid said. “Israel has always told the world: ‘We are the only democracy in the Middle East and we are the strongest country in the Middle East.’ We simply forgot – these two things do not depend on each other. They are cause and effect.”
Lapid argued for the need to strengthen Israel’s commitment to democratic values, saying: “Our goal is not to end the war and return, our goal is to win the war and be better than we were.”
President Isaac Herzog speaks at the opening session of the Knesset winter session at the Knesset plenum in Jerusalem on October 16, 2023. (Noam Revkin Fenton/Flash90)
In this way, the opposition leader said, elected officials would restore public trust, which was eroded after Hamas’ devastating surprise attack on Israel on October 7.
“Our goal is to restore trust between this house,” the Knesset, “and the citizens of Israel,” Lapid said.
Herzog, without explicitly saying that democracy must be strengthened, said that the Israeli “state and its institutions must align themselves with the standards set by this amazing and wonderful nation in its difficult hour.”
Herzog added that Israel “cannot leave this war the way we entered it,” and said Israel must strengthen itself on three levels: political, security and internal society.
“Our enemies crave any trace of polarization between us. It’s really part of their strategic plan,” he added.