TEL AVIV: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held press conference moments ago together with his Minister of Defence, Yoav Gallant, to announce the establishment of a "Government of National Emergency" together with the opposition Blue and White Party led by a former IDF chief of staff and defence minister Benny Gantz who also took part.
The press conference came after Netanyahu spoke personally for the fourth time since the Hamas attack.
"The Jewish (Israel) Nation is united and now its leadership is also united," declared Netanyahu. Calling Hamas worse than ISIS, Netanyahu listed some of the atrocities committed on Saturday including the burning of people alive. He added that every family in Israel is in some way connected to a victim of the attacks. "We will all fight together for our home," he added and described the "unprecedented" support that Israel has received from world leaders. "We have gone on the offensive... Every member of Hamas is a dead man," he declared.
Netanyahu concluded by saying that all of Israel stands behind its soldiers and that Israel will win. "We are all one, we are all enlisting, we have all enlisted [in the fight]," declared Benny Gantz.
"There is only one camp, the camp of the Nation of Israel," he said adding that the new partnership with Netanyahu is not a political one, but one of fate. "All of Israel is under an Order Number 8 (the order sent to reservists for an emergency wartime call up)," said Gantz adding that such unity in government is what the Israeli people want and need.
But Gantz's block has only 12 of the 56 opposition seats in the Knesset. The largest faction, the Yesh Atid Party led by Yair Lapid, has 24 seats. Interestingly, both Gantz and Netanyahu concluded their individual remarks by quoting passages from the Bible.