Donald Trump slams Netanyahu, claims Israel was not prepared for Hamas attack

Former American President Donald Trump said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was unprepared for a Hamas attack that left more than 1,300 people dead and dozens more held hostage in Israel.

Netanyahu “has been hurt very badly” as a result of the incident, according to Trump, the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, who was speaking to Fox News on Wednesday.

“He was not prepared. He was not prepared and Israel was not prepared. And under Trump, they wouldn’t have had to be prepared,” he said, drawing criticism at home and abroad.

He called the Lebanese terrorist organisation Hezbollah, which, like Hamas in Gaza, is supported by Iran, “very smart” when addressing supporters in Florida.

“You know, Hezbollah is very smart,” Trump said. “They’re all very smart.”

Israel was still burying its dead on Thursday from the devastating Hamas attack on Saturday, one of the worst in its 75-year history. In retaliation, it launched airstrikes on Gaza that resulted in the deaths of at least 1,400 Palestinians.

Andrew Bates, a spokesperson for the White House, described the remarks as “dangerous and unhinged,” while several of Trump’s Republican rivals criticised him for criticising a U.S. partner during a crisis.

Trump’s words, according to Israeli Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi, demonstrated his lack of dependability.

It is “shameful that a man like that, a former U.S. president, abets propaganda and disseminates things that wound the spirit of Israel’s fighters and its citizens,” Karhi told Israel’s Channel 13.

Trump claimed in his address that he was revealing for the first time that Israel had abruptly decided not to participate in the American assassination of Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani, who was killed on January 3, 2020, in an Iraqi drone strike on Trump’s orders.

The night before the operation, Israel, according to Trump, informed the United States that it had decided not to take part. Trump claimed that Israeli officials had not given a justification for their choice.

“I’ll never forget that Bibi Netanyahu let us down. That was a very terrible thing,” Trump said, using Netanyahu’s nickname.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, one of Trump’s rivals in the Republican primary, criticised the outgoing president.

“(It) is absurd that anyone, much less someone running for President, would choose now to attack our friend and ally, Israel,” DeSantis wrote on social media late on Wednesday.

Trump and Netanyahu were tight during Trump’s tenure as president, but rifts have emerged in their formerly unbreakable bond.

(With agency inputs)