Eisenkot pledges to destroy Hamas 'within 18 months of becoming prime minister' at Gaza border - The Jerusalem Post

Yashar, party leader and former IDF chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot, pledged to destroy Hamas's military wing and dismantle its leadership within 18 months of becoming prime minister while giving a briefing at the Gaza border on Thursday.

“I pledge that within 18 months of taking office as prime minister,Hamaswill no longer rule the Gaza Strip. We will destroy Hamas’s military wing," he said.

"This will happen either through action based on President Trump’s framework, which Netanyahu’s government accepted, or through the use of military and operational capabilities.”

In response, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party stated: "How would you destroy Hamas without getting permission from your partners, Mansour [Abbas] and [Ahmed] Tibi?"

Likud's statement insinuated that a government including Arab parties would prevent anoperation in Gaza, though Abbas's Ra'am was a coalition partner during several strikes against Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, including an IDF operation targeting Hamas tunnels just days after the coalition's formation in June 2021 and during the 2022 Operation Breaking Dawn.

"For 17 years, Netanyahu and Likud have misled Israel’s citizens and strengthened Hamas," Eisenkot said in response to Likud.

"If you had focused a little more on doing your job and a little less on drafting talking points, perhaps October 7 could have been prevented. In 12 days, you’re going home."

Notably, Eisenkot has repeatedly insisted he would not allow Abbas or Tibi's Joint List to join his coalition, tellingThe Jerusalem Postthathe did not consider them viable partners.

"In the basic guidelines of the next government, it will be written that whoever does not accept that Hamas is a terrorist organization, that it needs to be dismantled and destroyed, will not be a partner in the next government," he said.

“And therefore I do not see an Arab party that accepts my principles.”

People of Israel leaderOfer Winterreferred to Eisenkot as the chief of staff who "embodied the 'conzeptzia (military mentality of containment),' pushed for containment and negotiated arrangements, and called for the war to stop before we entered Rafah," insisting that he could not lead Israel to victory.

"Eisenkot appointed Yair Golan, Aharon Haliva, and Herzi Halevi, and promoted disastrous doctrines that led Israel to October 7. There will not be, and cannot be, a decisive victory under a government led by Gadi Eisenkot and Yair Golan," he said.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir added that "There is no limit to the lies of the Arab and left-wing camp led by Eisenkot."

"When Eisenkot was in the cabinet, he demanded a complete halt to the war, capitulation to all of Hamas’s demands, a full withdrawal from Gaza, and the release of all terrorists from Israeli prisons. He vehemently opposed taking Rafah and entering the Philadelphi Corridor and, of course, opposed taking the security zone in Lebanon," he stated.