Coalition Knesset members assailed Israeli lawmaker Mansour Abbas (Ra’am Party) on Wednesday after he urged an end to the war against Hamas and claimed that the IDF murdered 50,000 civilians in Gaza.
“Of course I want to stop the war! Fifty thousand civilians were murdered in the Gaza Strip,” exclaimed Abbas, whose Islamist party was part of the coalition formed by Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett in 2021. (The Hebrew word used by Abbas could also be translated as “citizens.”)
Likud lawmaker Tali Gottlieb responded to Abbas: “If you call my soldiers murderers, you won’t be here.” Following the incident, Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana ordered Abbas to leave the podium.
"50,000 אזרחים נרצחו ברצועת עזה": ח"כ מנסור עבאס התייחס למצב בעזה ועורר מהומה במליאה. צפו:@mnsorabbas @TallyGotliv @AmirOhana @hanochmilwidsky pic.twitter.com/1yX77MLpsS
— ערוץ כנסת (@KnessetT) July 17, 2024
Wednesday’s Knesset debate also saw Ayman Odeh, leader of the predominantly Arab Hadash-Ta’al Party, escorted out of the plenum hall after he called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a terrorist.
Earlier this year, an investigation by the Justice Ministry found evidence that entities linked to Ra’am “transferred funds or cooperated with organizations outside of Israel that were designated as terrorist groups.”
Asked in May about his views of Hamas—which started the current war when it massacred some 1,200 people, primarily Jewish civilians, on Oct. 7—Abbas said that the terrorist group is “part of the Palestinian people.”