Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel Resilience Party chairman Benny Katz traded barbs on Wednesday, accusing each other of having compromised Israel's security.
"Using the holiest of holies of Israel's security for campaign purposes crosses a red line and must end now," Gantz said, referring to a statement by Netanyahu on Tuesday in which he apparently took credit for an attack on Iranian forces on the Golan Heights.
Netanyahu said that Israel "fights Iran's influence in the region every day, and that was also the case on Monday."
This was widely interpreted to mean that Israel was behind the strike in Quneitra, which reportedly killed two Iranian Revolutionary Guards on the Golan Heights.
Gantz said that Netanyahu's decision to forgo Israel's traditional policy of ambiguity on such attacks was designed to bolster his national security credentials and boost his electoral prospects ahead of the April 9 Knesset election.
"Prime Minister Netanyahu, we are both patriots and we are both running against each other," Gantz said. "There is one thing that must stay categorically off limits – compromising our clandestine activities and gloating over secret missions; this can put our troops in harm's way."
The Likud shot back at the former IDF chief of staff, saying that Gantz was "the last person who can lecture us on morality, having already said that he put Israeli troops on the line in order to protect Palestinians."
The Likud was referring to comments Gantz made a few years ago, describing an incident in Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014. Gantz said he had waited before ordering a strike on terrorists in order to save Palestinian civilians, even though troops from the Golani Brigade were under fire.
