The decision not to attack “strategic and economic targets” in Iran was “mistaken,” and Israel can and must exact a “far heavier” price from Tehran, opposition leader MK Yair Lapid said on Saturday.
The Yesh Atid chairman congratulated the Israel Air Force, which exhibited the “highest operational capabilities in the world” in the Saturday morning attacks but concluded that “Iran is the head of the axis of evil and must pay a heavy price for its aggression.”
Fellow opposition member Yisrael Beytenu chairman MK Avigdor Liberman also praised the IAF’s capabilities but warned that Iran will “continue its efforts to obtain nuclear weapons and continue supplying Hezbollah, the Houthis, and other Shi’ite militias and various proxies with funding from oil and gas sales.
“Unfortunately, instead of exacting a real price, it seems that Israel’s government again has sufficed with extravagant actions and public relations,” Liberman tweeted.
Some members of the coalition said the attack should be followed by more attacks, including National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir (Otzma Yehudit), who is a member of the National Security Cabinet, which approved the attack.
“The attack in Iran is important as an opening blow in hitting Iran’s strategic assets, and this must be the next stage. This is my position and I will continue presenting it in relevant forums. We have a historic duty to remove the Iranian threat to destroy Israel.”
Israeli MKs urge action against Iran’s nuclear program
MK Dan Illouz (Likud) said deterring Iran was not enough and that “now is the time for a full dismantling of the nuclear program and creating a significant change in the Middle East.
“Israel must lead the move while calling on the states in the free world for support,” Illouz added.
MK Ohad Tal (Religious Zionist Party) made similar comments, saying that “as long as the Iranian nuclear [program] has not been destroyed, as long as the Iranian regime of evil has not been toppled, our response has not ended.”Both Illouz and Tal are members of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
Democrats chairman Yair Golan commended the government’s restraint but attributed it either to US pressure or the IDF’s “voice of reason.”
“As things seem now, there is a large potential that the Israeli response damaged Iran’s defense and attack capabilities, but without dragging us into a certain war of attrition, that is not within the range of Israel’s security and national interests,” Golan wrote on X.
He called the response a “closing act” and not an “opening act” and said that if this is indeed the case, the government can return to dealing with what it “refuses to deal with,” the return of the hostages in Hamas captivity.
National Unity chairman MK Benny Gantz also praised the attacks, which he said “were a new stage in our war against Iran that laid the basis for additional action and exacted from it a significant price for its failed attempts to harm Israel.”
Gantz added, “Alongside this, it is important to stress that we have been at war for a year, and it is far from over. The efforts to return the hostages, replace Hamas’s government, cause ongoing harm to Hezbollah, and fashion a new security reality in the North, which will enable our residents to return and live safely, must continue.”
