Former PM Bennett blasts Netanyahu for Gaza deal, demands to reveal concessions allegedly made 'behind Israelis’ backs'

Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett stepped up his criticism of the Israeli government in recent days, apparently with an eye toward the next elections after confirming that he will run for the premiership for the first time this week.

In a statement published on Thursday, he sharply criticized the conduct of the government regarding various aspects of the Gaza ceasefire, accusing it of making significant concessions behind the backs of the Israeli public.

“The transfer of security control in Gaza to multinational forces, some of them hostile like Turkey, endangers Israel’s security. Transferring control over our fate to Qatar – a Hamas financier – and to Erdoğan is [like the] Oslo [Accords] on steroids,” Bennett charged.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed several times that the participation of Turkish troops in the international security force in Gaza would be a red line.

“Turkish soldiers will not be deployed in the Gaza Strip,” an Israeli government spokesperson told reporters on Sunday.

Bennett also joined in the criticism made by the opposition, alleging that the government is letting the Trump administration call the important shots in Gaza.

“The IDF must have the freedom to act at all times,” he wrote, asking, “How did we reach a situation in which our soldiers must get approval for the movement of an Israeli force from the American command in Kiryat Gat?”

“The State of Israel is not a protectorate,” Bennett said.

In an apparent hint at reports that Israel secretly agreed to a U.S. request to allow around 200 Hamas terrorists trapped in Rafah to surrender, he continued, “I demand the immediate publication of all commitments and concessions being forged behind the backs of Israeli citizens.”

“What is the explicit or hidden motive of the Israeli government in agreeing to give up our security and freedom of action? The citizens of Israel deserve full transparency regarding their security,” Bennett’s statement concluded.

Earlier this week, Bennett explicitly declared his intention to run for the premiership in the upcoming elections for the first time.

At an event at Yeshiva University on Tuesday, he told the audience, “I am running for prime minister right now.”

When interviewed by ALL ISRAEL NEWS’s Editor-in-Chief Joel Rosenberg in June, Bennett had declined to confirm that he would run for prime minister.

In March, Bennett had registered an as-of-yet unnamed new party and has been in frequent talks with other opposition leaders about potential mergers.

The former businessman who served as prime minister for about a year in 2021 and 2022 said at Yeshiva University, “I think we have a really lousy government right now in Israel.”

“That’s why I’m running to hopefully replace that government,” he said. “When a particular Israeli minister does stupid things, the stupidity reverberates across the world, and I think sometimes that ministers and politicians in Israel have a very myopic view, a very narrow view, and don’t understand the ramifications of what they say.”

Over the past months, Bennett has weighed in occasionally on the conduct of the war and other perceived failings of the government.

On Monday, Bennett slammed Netanyahu for seeking to “fake commission” and not wanting to earnestly probe his government’s Oct. 7 failures.

“I now hear that the government wants to establish a kind of fake commission whose members it appoints – even though this same government bears immense responsibility for this disaster.”

“Therefore, I say here as clearly as possible: On the first day of the government that we will form, we will cancel any circus committee that is established, and we will create a state commission of inquiry to investigate the failure of the October 7 massacre,” Bennett said.

The next regular elections are scheduled for early fall of next year. However, the governing coalition has been lurching from one crisis into the next for the past months and could well break apart over the IDF draft law controversy.

Currently, it holds a razor-thin majority in the 120-seat Knesset after United Torah Judaism left the coalition in July.