"It will take us years to repair the political and strategic damage that Netanyahu created," Lapid claimed, while Otzma Yehudit MK Zvika Fogel blames Trump for "wimping out."
Opposition leader Yair Lapid sharply criticized on Wednesday the ceasefire with Iran announced earlier in the day, calling it a failure of political and strategic leadership and warning of long-term consequences for Israel’s security.
“There has never been such a political disaster in all of our history,” Lapid wrote in a statement, arguing that “Israel wasn't even part of the discussions when decisions were made concerning our national security.”
He added that while “the military carried out everything that was asked of it” and “the public demonstrated amazing resilience,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “failed politically, failed strategically, and didn't meet a single one of the goals that he himself set.”
Lapid warned that “it will take us years to repair the political and strategic damage that Netanyahu created due to arrogance, negligence, and a lack of strategic planning.”
Many in Israel view the ceasefire as a negative outcome
Chair of the Knesset's National Security Committee and a member of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party, MK Zvika Fogel, reacted to the ceasefire announced by Trump with a sharply worded post on X.
“Donald, you really wimped out,” he wrote, using the Hebrew word for “duck” to describe the American president, which in slang implies weakness or a lack of backbone.
While Fogel and Lapid directed their criticism in different directions, their remarks reflect a broader sentiment shared across Israel's political spectrum that sees the ceasefire in its current form as a negative outcome for Israel.
Chairman of Israel Beytenu party Avigdor Liberman warned that the ceasefire "gives the ayatollahs' regime a breather and an opportunity to regroup," adding that "any agreement with Iran, without forgoing the destruction of Israel, uranium enrichment, production of ballistic missiles, and support for terrorist organizations in the region, means we'll have to return to another campaign under harsher conditions and pay a heavier price."
Frontline communities fear Hezbollah threat to persist despite ceasefire
Beyond the threat posed by Iran, others expressed a more immediate concern over Lebanon.
Israel has consistently stated its goal in Lebanon in the current war is to disarm Hezbollah and eliminate the threat it poses to northern communities. And while the IDF has recently signaled that fully achieving that objective may be unrealistic, the current ceasefire is widely viewed as a setback to efforts to significantly degrade the group’s capabilities.
Statements issued by frontline communities in northern Israel following Trump's announcement voiced concern over a ceasefire that would halt IDF activity in southern Lebanon.
"If the war in Lebanon against Hezbollah is halted, that would be a first-rate ethical, moral, and security failure," head of the Upper Galilee Regional Council, Moshe Davidovich, was cited by N12 as saying.
"It is unacceptable that we sent our finest sons to fight, and turned hundreds of thousands of residents sitting on the confrontation line into defenders of the state, only to stop just a moment before the decisive moment," added Davidovich, who also serves as chairman of the Confrontation Line Forum.
Netanyahu's office welcomed Trump's announcement of a ceasefire earlier on Wednesday, saying that "Israel supports President Trump's decision to suspend strikes against Iran for two weeks" but stressed that the two-week ceasefire does not include Lebanon.
Hours later, IDF Arabic-language spokesperson Avichay Adraee issued an evacuation warning for a building in the al-Abbasiyah area of Tyre in southern Lebanon, amid Lebanese reports of strikes on several targets in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah, for its part, has so far refrained from launching attacks on Israeli territory since the ceasefire was announced.
