ormer Defense Minister MK Avigdor Liberman said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu personally torpedoed plans to strike Gaza during a significant escalation in violence between Israel and Hamas in November.

“Netanyahu personally torpedoed the plans,” the Chairman of Yisrael Beytenu told Ben Caspit at the Maariv Security Conference on Wednesday. “We have enough tools to deal with Gaza and I had a full plan.”

Liberman resigned from his post as defense minister in November following a ceasefire deal signed between Israel and Hamas after over 500 rockets were fired towards southern Israeli communities.

The ceasefire with Hamas, he said at the time “cannot be interpreted in any way other than a capitulation to terrorism. This will severely harm our security in the long run. The response that we gave to the 500 rockets shot from Gaza was not enough, to say the least. The South should come first. Our weakness is being broadcast to other fronts.”

On Sunday the latest escalation with Hamas in the Gaza Strip saw over 100 mortars and rockets fired towards southern Israeli communities, and that, Liberman said, shows that Israel does not have security.

“Security is when people don’t have to run to bomb shelters,” he told Ben Caspit, adding that Israel is paying protection money to terror groups instead of destroying it.

“There’s no terror without money and now Israel is allowing money into Gaza for Hamas. We are paying protection to a terror organization and doing everything not to get the terror organization mad. Netanyahu said he said he struck Hamas hard, but not even one terrorist was even hurt,” he said.

Former deputy IDF Chief of Staff Maj.-Gen. Yair Golan, who also spoke at the conference, told the crowd that Israel’s military has been doing the same thing over and over and over again, allowing the enemy to learn.

“For the past 30 years the IDF has been acting pretty much the same and the enemy has learnt. When you are able to know how the war is going to play out, you know how deal it and how to take the blows,” he said.

The rocket barrages came after a deadly IDF raid in Khan Yunis left an IDF lieutenant-colonel and seven Hamas terrorists dead on Sunday night. The barrage began around 4:30 p.m. after a Kornet anti-tank missile was fired toward a bus at the Black Arrow Memorial Site in the Sha’ar HaNegev region. A 19-year-old soldier was transferred to Soroka University Medical Center in Beersheba in critical condition after he was hit standing near the bus. He was in stable condition by Monday evening. 

Hamas released a video of the attack late Monday night. In the video, the soldier can be seen standing next to the bus in an unprotected area before the bus was hit and completely destroyed. All the other soldiers had been able to make it off the bus before it was hit. 
The wounded soldier’s father, who was interviewed by Channel 2 News, called for an investigation. 

“Why was my son there? I don’t understand what they were doing near the border. They brought them to the fence and left them [there] like sitting ducks.” 

On Tuesday evening, the IDF announced that the head of the Ground Forces, Maj.Gen. Kobi Barak, appointed a team to investigate the incident which will be headed by Brig.-Gen. Amir Epstein, the commander of the IDF’s Border Defense Array. 

Walla reported that the driver is reported to have lied to Military Police and bypassed IDF checkpoints to enter the Black Arrow site. 

Military Police officers closed the site following orders signed by Southern Command head Maj.-Gen. Hertzi Halevi over concerns that Hamas would carry out a sniper or anti-tank missile attack, according to Walla. 

Quoting military sources, Walla said the bus was able to bypass the blockade by telling the officers that the soldiers in the bus were part of an elite unit that had come to reinforce troops in the area. 

Shortly after the military policemen granted the bus access, it was hit by the Kornet. Read more at JPost