Former prime minister Naftali Bennett urged a comprehensive deal to bring home all hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza in an interview broadcast Saturday, sharply criticizing the government’s handling of the war and urging it to focus on returning the abductees, ending the war, deploying the army along the Strip’s perimeter, and deferring full defeat of Hamas to the next government.
In a pre-recorded interview aired on Channel 12 news — his first with Israeli media since his leadership tenure ended — Bennett, seen as a key rival to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the next election, also praised Israel’s 12-day war with Iran, which ended earlier this week under US pressure, while claiming credit for some of the key preparations that enabled it.
Defending his track record from his 2021–2022 premiership, Bennett asserted that plans had been underway at the time to assassinate Yahya Sinwar and other Hamas leaders in Gaza — but that these were abandoned “because Idit Silman toppled the government,” referring to the Yamina party lawmaker whose defection caused his fragile, diverse coalition to collapse in mid-2022.
“We talked about decapitating them and all the leadership of Hamas,” he said, stressing that this was not because he foresaw the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023 — on the contrary, he admitted he hadn’t foreseen it — but due to warnings from security chiefs about a potential multifront conflict related to tensions surrounding Jerusalem’s flashpoint Temple Mount holy site. Fearing that this would ignite the region, he sought to take the initiative against Hamas.
When asked if the October 7 attack — which was planned by the Palestinian terror group for years while deceiving Israel’s military and successive governments — could have occurred under his leadership, he simply responded: “[October 7] took place on Netanyahu’s watch. That’s the fact.” He emphasized his “zero tolerance” for Hamas attacks, stating: “I didn’t let them get close to the fence.”
The 2023 Hamas-led invasion and attack saw some 1,200 people killed and 251 kidnapped to the Gaza Strip, sparking the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. Terror groups in the Gaza Strip are still holding 50 hostages, including 49 of the 251 abducted by Hamas-led terrorists on October 7. They include the bodies of at least 28 confirmed dead by the IDF. Twenty are believed to be alive, and there are grave concerns for the well-being of two others, Israeli officials have said.
Bennett described Israel as a “nation of lions with failed leadership,” claiming that he coined the phrase “nation of lions” to capture how, after the October 7 assault, “the government disappeared… and the people rose” to fight back.
Turning to current politics, he declared that Netanyahu “needs to go home.” After being asked three times, Bennett ruled out the prospect of joining a future government led by Netanyahu. “That’s correct,” he said when specifically asked if he would avoid serving in a coalition headed by him.
Bennett argued that in any democracy, 20 years is too long for one prime minister to serve, accusing Netanyahu of causing significant damage by failing to take responsibility for his failures, and spreading internal “poison” in Israeli society.
He also denounced the current government for continuing “to fund Hamas” through aid sent into Gaza, calling its overall performance “dreadful.” He criticized its failure to draft the ultra-Orthodox and to enable the IDF to deploy the necessary force to deliver a “crushing blow” to Hamas.
Bennett added that the Israeli people want a government that leads calmly and effectively, not one beholden to Haredi politicians, in which, he argued, the tail wags the dog.
While he expressed hope for “a compromise, an agreement” that puts Netanyahu’s criminal trial “behind us,” Bennett said this matters less to him than the fact that Israeli soldiers are going into Gaza in inadequately protected vehicles because the government allegedly remains focused on other, less important issues.
Bennett praised Israel’s surprise June 13 strikes against Iran as having “gone better than expected,” calling them “an extraordinary achievement” that stood in stark contrast to the failures of October 7.
He noted that the government he headed budgeted some NIS 6 billion ($1.77 billion) for operations in Iran, which he argued were crucial to making the recent strikes possible. However, Bennett claimed there was a real failure in 2018, when Israel didn’t put plans in place to attack Iran after US President Donald Trump withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran.
“I think this attack, like the [exploding] pagers targeting Hezbollah and other very nice things, proved to the world that we are still bastards, we have outside-the-box tricks, and that we have force and will,” he added.
Bennett said he had urged Israel seven years ago to target “the head of the octopus” — Iran — and criticized the failure of the government in place at the time — also headed by Netanyahu — to act. “I pushed for this,” he said, “and, as prime minister, I took action inside Iranian territory several times.”
He said he “devoted the first month” of his premiership, which began in June 2021, to deeply assessing the threat posed by Iran, including its nuclear program, concluding that Iran was far weaker than previously believed.
Bennett said he was “stunned” at the time to discover that the previous Netanyahu government had not made the necessary preparations and that Israel “didn’t have the capacity to attack Iran.”
Specifically, the NIS 6 billion required for intelligence and munitions “had not been budgeted, the order had not been given.”
During his tenure, Bennett said he reallocated the budget and authorized the resources and capabilities necessary to carry out such operations. “Without the actions we took in 2021, it would not have been possible to give the order in 2025.”
Arguing that it takes just four days to enrich uranium from 60-percent purity to weapons-grade, Bennett said he believes that some of Iran’s pre-war stockpile of 400 kilograms of 60%-enriched uranium still exists, though he is unsure of the exact amount.
He said it would “soon” become apparent whether some of the “halls of centrifuge cascades” survived the Israeli and American strikes.
Looking ahead, Bennett said Israel should, in principle, work toward the fall of the Iranian regime, expressing confidence that it will collapse “in 40 or 4 years… The regime is loathed by the [Iranian] public… But you cannot bring down the regime with bombs.”
He said he had proposed several measures to hasten the regime’s downfall, including sending tens of thousands of Starlink devices to restore internet access during government-imposed blackouts, supporting opposition groups, and taking steps to weaken the regime economically.
Bennett concluded that “comprehensive measures” are needed to accelerate the regime’s collapse, warning that “it’s clear they are now beginning to renew” the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program — a development that must be prevented.
Netanyahu’s office responded by saying Bennett, after a tenure of just one year, was trying to “steal a 40-year credit,” calling it “embarrassing and detached from reality.”
“Bennett, who served four years before Operation Rising Lion, heaped praise as defense minister on Prime Minister Netanyahu’s actions against Iran’s nuclear threat,” the Prime Minister’s Office continued. “He himself admitted back then that it was an achievement of Netanyahu’s government that had been advanced over decades.”
Israel launched its surprise operation against Iran on June 13 when it launched a sweeping assault on Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs. The 12-day conflict came to a close Tuesday when a US-brokered ceasefire took hold.
Israeli forces targeted top military leaders, nuclear scientists, uranium enrichment sites and ballistic missile programs in the country to dismantle the “existential threat” posed by the Islamic Republic.
Iran retaliated to Israel’s attacks by launching over 500 ballistic missiles and around 1,100 drones at Israel.
The attacks killed 28 people and wounded thousands in Israel, according to health officials and hospitals.