Netanyahu: Bennett-Lapid Gov’t Has Given Up on Corona

Former Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu accused the current government of not being able to manage the COVID pandemic in a video published Tuesday night.

“I went to Hadassah Hospital in Yerushalayim and I met a good number of medical experts, and the conclusion is clear: The Bennett-Lapid government has given up,” Netanyahu said.

“Our government placed Israel as the first country to emerge from the pandemic while their government propelled it to the top spot of the most infected countries in the world,” he continued.

“Unfortunately, the situation is getting worse. The government has lost control of the number of serious illnesses, hospitalizations, the situation of children, and the country’s economy. With more than 850 patients in serious condition, this is hampering care for patients with other illnesses, and operations are being left unscheduled, leading to unnecessary deaths,” he stated.

He also said that a record number of patients were hospitalized with COVID on Tuesday, deploring “constant pressure on the nursing staff, who are working understaffed because the contaminated teams are confined.”

Regarding infected children, Netanyahu declared that “by letting children become infected, unfortunately, some of them will suffer from serious symptoms, will require hospitalization, or will even have symptoms in the very long term,” referring to recent reports from other countries of an increase of cases of pediatric inflammatory multisystem syndrome (PIMS) in children who recovered from omicron compared to previous variants.

“Infected children will then infect everyone around them; this is a real danger. This government is going down this road with its eyes closed, without having thought about its decisions.”

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett responded to the remarks, saying, “It is good to see that Netanyahu has tended to his personal affairs and returned to spreading hysteria and chaos with all his might as usual.

“After three lockdowns [under his government], with 6,500 Israelis dying, 100,000 businesses closed, one million unemployed and children who learned only through screens, the citizens of Israel say to him: thank you but no thanks. The government under my leadership will continue to run the country calmly and responsibly.”