Defense Minister Gallant responded this morning (Thursday) to an attack by former American President Donald Trump against him, where he claimed that Gallant hoped aloud that Hezbollah would not attack Israel.
"Defense Minister Gallant did not address and will not speak out in any way to what is attributed to him in various reports, per which 'he hopes Hezbollah will not attack us in the north,'" the Defense Ministry clarified. According to them, "This is baseless speculation - the Defense Minister is convinced and confident in the power of the IDF and defense forces to strike at all our enemies, as we are operating now against Hamas in Gaza."
As reported, at a speech in an election rally in Philadelphia, Trump claimed that “They have a national defense minister or somebody saying, ‘I hope Hezbollah doesn’t attack us from the north.’ So the following morning, they attacked… If you listen to this jerk, you would attack from the north because he said, ‘That’s our weak spot.'”
Trump also attacked Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, saying "I’ll never forget that Bibi Netanyahu let us down. That was a very terrible thing, I will say that." He expressed criticism for Netanyahu not helping with the assassination of Qassem Souleimani, saying "So, we were disappointed by that. Very disappointed, but we did the job ourself, but it was absolute precision, magnificent, beautiful job. And then Bibi tried to take credit for it. That didn’t make me feel too good."
He also criticized Israel's intelligence capabilities, saying "they've got to straighten it out. Because they're fighting ... a potentially big force, they're fighting, potentially, Iran. And when they have people saying the wrong things, everything they say is being digested by these people, because they're vicious and they're smart."
Trump ended by sniping at Joe Biden, connecting the war to his conspiratorial belief that the elections were stolen: "If that election wasn't rigged, we would have had that thing done so fast, and you wouldn't have any of these problems. But you would have never, ever had anybody attacking Israel if I were President. It wouldn't have happened. And when you look at the death - I mean, hundreds of Israeli soldiers are dead, hundreds of people in their homes, they were attacked...they're gonna have to step up their game and the United States is gonna have to step up its game because we're really led by the wrong people."