Moshe Yaalon to set up new Israeli political party

The former Israeli Defence Minister has announced his intention to create a new political party which will take part in the country’s next Knesset elections.

Moshe Yaalon, who is also a former Chief of Staff for the Israel Defence Forces, told an audience of his decision at Habima Theatre in Tel Aviv on Saturday.

Although he had announced last June that he would run for Prime Minister, this was the first time Mr Yaalon had made mention of forming a new political party to achieve that aim. He said that he had “made the decision to found a party, a political force, to run for national leadership” because he cared “about the country, our children and our grandchildren”.

Mr Yaalon also used the opportunity to respond to the publication of the Israeli State Comptroller’s report into the conduct of the Cabinet during the 2014 Gaza war. As Defence Minister at the time, he was among those criticised in the report, but condemned it for “ignoring wider considerations because it fell prisoner to politicians with ulterior motives.”

He urged the audience to “look at the results” of the conflict, which he said had led to “two and a half years of unprecedented quiet”, on the Gaza front.

"We reached our aim without Hamas achieving anything,” he said.

“If we would have gone for slogans, we would have had many more casualties, and they would have fired more rockets.

“It's a good thing that our enemies appreciate the IDF much more than we do,” he continued.

A former member of Knesset for the right-wing Likud party, Mr Yaalon also issued some digs against fellow right-wing politicians during a question and answer session at the event.

"I've learned to drink wine for my homeland, and to wear a suit for my homeland. Cigars? I've never had to smoke cigars for the sake of my homeland,” he said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is currently under investigation for accepting expensive gifts, including high quality cigars.

Mr Yaalon has also been publicly critical of the conduct of Naftali Bennett, leader of the nationalist Jewish Home party, who served alongside him in the cabinet during the 2014 war. He has previously referred to Mr Bennett as the “Minister for Leaks”.

"The attempts to get 'likes' in support of eliminating Hamas or giving a 48-hour ultimatum to Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh - that's not what I'm about," he said on Saturday, in a comment widely considered to have been alluding to Mr Bennett.

"Many ministers visited the front, after receiving permission from the Defense Ministry, and they acted according to the rules."