Demonstrators chant slogans and hold signs during a rally against Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu outside his residence in the occupied al-Quds, on August 1, 2025. (Photo by AP)

Press TV – Aug 17, 2025

More than 680 days into Israel’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, the regime’s former military and political officials have warned that prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is “dragging Israel into the abyss” after failing to reach a ceasefire deal with Hamas.

Gadi Eisenkot, a former chief of staff of the Israeli occupation army, censured on Saturday Netanyahu’s lack of leadership and admitted to the regime’s defeat in the long-running war with Hamas in Gaza since October 2023.

“Netanyahu’s lack of leadership and refusal to make difficult decisions, out of personal and political considerations, are dragging Israel into the abyss,” Eisenkot said in a Facebook post.

“Twenty-two months have passed since the October 7 failure. The war’s objectives have not yet been achieved, and our brothers are dying in Hamas tunnels.”

The former military chief also called on Israeli settlers to join a massive strike organized by the families of the captives on Sunday to pressure the regime into reaching a ceasefire deal with Hamas.

Israeli media said a large-scale strike is expected on Sunday morning as families of the captives protest Netanyahu’s recent decision to expand the war in Gaza, rather than sign a deal to return those in captivity.

The organizers of the mass protest said nearly one million people were estimated to join the strike in Tel Aviv and tens of thousands of others in various locations across Israel.

The occupied territories have been the scene of widespread protests against Netanyahu and his war cabinet for scuttling a deal to bring back the captives, most of whom have already been killed in Israel’s indiscriminate and relentless bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

In January, a temporary ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas led to the release of several captives and Palestinian abductees held illegally in Israeli jails.

However, the Israeli regime refused to extend the deal as initially planned, choosing instead to intensify its military assaults on Gaza by shattering the 2-month deal.

Netanyahu ‘lies as naturally as he breathes’: Ex-PM

Former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak also launched a fierce attack on Netanyahu on Saturday evening and said he “lies as naturally as he breathes.”

Barak accused Netanyahu of no longer caring about the regime’s security and focusing instead on his personal safety and political survival.

The former Israeli prime minister said Netanyahu is waging a “futile war” aimed at evading his corruption trials and the crisis over the conscription law related to exemptions for ultra-Orthodox “Haredim.”

Netanyahu, he also said, misled US President Donald Trump and his aides, convincing them that Israel had only two options: either surrender to Hamas or continue fighting until every one of its fighters was eliminated.

“Trump understands nothing about military matters and relies entirely on Netanyahu,” Barak said, adding that the Israeli prime minister managed to secure American approval to continue a “pointless war.”

Arguing that the ongoing war ultimately serves Hamas, Barak said, “Israel will sink deeper into the Gaza quagmire and will not be able to eliminate the movement this way.”

“We may have disagreed with some past leaders, but they were neither cowards nor liars. Today we live under leadership that has completely lost its compass,” he said.

Israel’s war on Gaza has since October 7, 2023, claimed the lives of at least 61,897 people and wounded 155,660, most of them women and children.

Moreover, at least 10,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.

The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly two million people from all over the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt – in what has become Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.

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