Blue and White leader Benny Gantz together with the rest of his MKs abandoned a Knesset debate on Gaza that the party initiated on Monday before Defense Minister Naftali Bennett had a chance to respond to the accusations leveled against the government. During the debate in the Knesset plenum, Gantz, together with Labor leader MK Amir Peretz and Meretz leader Nitzan Horowitz, denounced the government for its failure to restore quiet in southern Israel and the Gaza border region and its failure to bring about long-term calm in the region. But citing the absence of the overwhelming majority of the coalition MKs at the debate, Gantz said he and his party would leave the Knesset and travel to the Gaza border region to meet with officials and members of the public there. “While we sit here, thousands of children in the south are in trauma every time they see a balloon,” said Gantz during his speech, in reference to the balloons and other lighter-than-air objects laden with explosives which terrorists from Gaza send over the border into Israel. “Netanyahu, in recent years you have turned the Gaza border region into the region captive to Gaza, and every day and every night the border region is held captive to Gaza,” accused Gantz. “The children of southern Israel can only dream of quiet while you are getting more and more disconnected from reality… because the Red Alert [rocket warnings] doesn’t really bother you… “The residents of the south bore you. You don’t even bother to go and meet with the heads of the local authorities which get hit incessantly, unless they are from the Likud party.” Bennett, who was present at the debate, denounced Gantz and his party for walking out of the Knesset plenum, calling on them to show “a minimum amount of courage,” and hear his comments. “Two people stand here, the architects of the failure to deal with the terror tunnels from Gaza to Israel, and now they’re running away,” said Bennett in reference to the terror tunnels which were discovered before the 2014 Protective Edge IDF operation in Gaza. Bennett alleged Gantz and former defense minister and senior Blue and White MK Moshe Yaalon refused to destroy these tunnels before Protective Edge was launched. “For fifty days you didn’t know how to deal with the tunnels and now you’re going to deal with balloons?” demanded the defense minister. “The people who did not succeed in stopping 4,594 rockets on the residents of the Gaza border region dare to preach to me how to deal with balloons?” continued Bennett with ardour. “When I fought against you Boogie [Yaalon] and Gantz, you hesitated and stuttered and were confused and didn’t know what to do, and they fled and I dealt with it.” Source
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