“It was possible to avoid the war in Gaza. This is the most important, the most painful, and the most chilling conclusion of the State Comptroller’s Report. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not examine policy alternatives to avoid war,” said MK Dov Khenin (Hadash – Joint List) on Wednesday morning, March 1, following publication of the Report on Operation Protective Edge.

“The Controller’s Report describes how, for a year and three months before the war, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) warned about a humanitarian disaster in the Gaza Strip – a food shortage, the lack of clean drinking water, a shortage of medicines, lengthy power cuts every day – But there was no discussion. Even in the cabinet meeting it was said that ‘if the terrible plight in Gaza had been addressed, it is possible that the war would not have broken out,’” Khenin emphasized and added “just think about these words said in the cabinet ‘it is possible that the war would not have broken out…’”

“Behind these words are hidden pictures and life stories of all the people – men and women, children and the elderly – who could have remained alive and still be here with us. Behind these words is 4-year-old Daniel Tregerman from Kibbutz Nahal Oz, who was killed on August 22, 2014 by a mortar shell that exploded outside his home; behind these words is 33-year-old Sara Ahmed Omar Sheikh al-Eid, who was killed on July 14, 2014 by fire from a warplane; behind these words are more than 5,000 children who continue to pay the price of arrogance, the price of indifference, the price of the Netanyahu government’s refusal to reach peace.”

“For three days now, military analysts and establishment politicians are gabbing themselves to death about cabinet meetings and intelligence gaps and operational plans. But all of this empty, security-minded talk merely obscures the most basic, terrible, unforgivable fact: The Netanyahu government led us into to an unnecessary war; an unjustifiable war of choice; a round of bloodletting that cost the lives of innocent masses, including children. There are many reasons why I think Netanyahu should go home: because of the poverty; because of the corruption; because of the incitement against Arab citizens. The State Comptroller’s report adds yet another reason, particularly oppressive and suffocating: Netanyahu has to go home because he dragged two peoples into a war that should not have been; a war in which 500 children who, even though they didn’t get to choose to participate in it or not, didn’t come back from.”