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Israeli Officials Hit Back at Critical Gaza Report

Former Israeli Chief of Staff Moshe Ya’alon hit back at a long-awaited report by Israel’s State Comptroller about the government’s conduct during the 2014 war with the Islamist Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip, called Protective Edge in Israel. The report accused the political and security establishment of major failures including not presenting the seriousness of threat of the underground tunnels that Hamas built into Israel. Then Chief of Staff Moshe Ya’alon rejected the criticism and said the report was “political.” He also had harsh words for the Security Cabinet, which made many of the decisions surrounding the war. Ya’alon, who is being actively courted by several Israeli political parties, said that he had participated in Security Cabinets since 1995, and the Protective Edge cabinet was “the worst and most irresponsible.” Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who was also criticized in the report, said that the calm on the Gaza border since the summer of 2014 was proof of the operations’ success. He said the Israeli army had made Hamas suffer the toughest blow in its history, assassinated 1000 terrorists and destroyed thousands of rockets. Several members of Israel’s opposition called for a formal commission of inquiry.