Israeli opposition leader urges Netanyahu to resign over Oct. 7 failures

JERUSALEM

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid Monday called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to step down, following the resignation of the military intelligence chief over failures to predict the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.

Maj. Gen. Aharon Haliva, the head of the Israeli army's Military Intelligence Directorate, resigned early Monday over his failure to predict the Hamas attack.

''The resignation of the military intelligence chief is justified and honorable. It would have been appropriate for Prime Minister Netanyahu to do the same,'' Lapid wrote on X.

A poll showed on Sunday that two-thirds of Israelis do not believe Netanyahu's claim that their country is close to achieving an imminent victory in its ongoing war in Gaza for over six months, according to Israeli Channel 13.

The poll also found that 63% of respondents support holding early elections, while 33% prefer holding the vote as scheduled in October 2026.

Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip since the Hamas attack on Oct. 7 last year, which Tel Aviv says killed nearly 1,200 people.

At least 34,151 Palestinians have since been killed, mostly women and children, and 77,00 others injured amid mass destructions and severe shortages of necessities.

The Israeli war has pushed 85% of Gaza’s population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.

*Writing by Mohammad Sio in Istanbul