Likud lawmaker Nissim Vaturi says Naama Lazimi is 'worse than Hamas,' faces probe calls

Vaturi commented that Lazimi’s character would make her a successful candidate in Hamas elections in the Gaza Strip. “That’s her character; she is unable to run in Israel,” he said in an interview on Kol Barama.

When questioned on this, he responded that “Anyone who harms the State of Israel from within is even worse than this. Our enemies are inside the state, inside our soft belly, inside the Knesset.”

“Vaturi’s words are blood libel and incitement to violence. When the deputy speaker of the Knesset compares a public representative to Hamas terrorists, he marks them as a target, and God forbid, lays groundwork for the next political murder,” Lazimi said.

“The coalition of lawlessness is trying to act with terror, but their threats will not stop our public struggle. I demand that the law enforcement system wake up and stop this madness immediately before it is too late,” she added.

“Netanyahu and his people have put a target on my back. The government of draft dodgers and failures is inviting the next political assassination. Our blood is on their hands,” she wrote on X/Twitter.

“This government has put a target on my back; it started with a politicized police force that beats me in the streets in violation of immunity, continued with an attorney general who threatened me and a Knesset member who called to shoot me in the legs just a week ago, and now this. It’s not me they’re trying to intimidate, but the entire liberal camp and everyone who opposes the government,” she added.

“Likud has turned into a bankrupt mafia; they have nothing to sell, so they resort to incitement and violence against those the Israeli public wants to replace them. The Hamas coalition is an asset that transferred suitcases of money to Hamas, trying to set the country ablaze again and crush Israel’s democratic regime,” she said.

“They won’t shy away from any means to break us, and we won’t give up; we’ll bring the change. I will continue to fight in the most resolute and determined way for the State of Israel and the Israeli public. They won’t scare me, they won’t stop us, they won’t prevent the change,” her X post concluded.

Blue and White Party leader Benny Gantz also denounced Vaturi, saying his statements were “incendiary, shameful, and crossed every red line.”

“Statements like these are violence in every sense, and in the reality we live in, they can also lead to physical violence,” Gantz wrote on X.

“How can one even compare a Knesset member in Israel to those who massacred us, murdered, raped, and kidnapped our citizens and seek to destroy us?” he queried.

“I call on all elected public officials, from every corner of the political system, to condemn these remarks and draw a clear line: This is not how discourse is conducted in the State of Israel. People like Nissim Vaturi must return to the margins from which they came, and the public discourse in Israel must change,” he added.