War in Gaza benefits PM Netanyahu, claims Israeli lawmaker

• Israeli lawmaker says Palestinians have a right to a separate homeland.
• Says Benjamin Netanyahu is benefitting from war in Gaza.
• Nearly 200 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks.

KARACHI: An Israeli lawmaker says the war in Gaza is giving a lifeline to embattled Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

In an exclusive interview with Geo News, Mossi Raz, a member of the Israeli Parliament, said that the ongoing Palestine crisis has benefitted PM Netanyahu and supported Palesntinans' right for a separate homeland.

Raz is a member of Meretz, a left-wing, social-democratic and green political party in Israel.

"The war in Gaza will benefit Netanyahu. The use of force is not the solution," the politician said amid Israeli attacks that have killed hundreds of Palestinians, including children, while the international community sit idle.

Raz said, “a separate state for the Palestinians can help resolve the dispute and vowed to raise his voice for a ceasefire in Knesset.”

Netanyahu is facing corruption charges and could have been removed from the office of prime minister had the war in Gaza not started.

The observations of the Israeli lawmaker were endorsed in a report by the Wall Street Journal as well.

“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is pressing an aggressive campaign against Hamas, targeting its leaders, strategic infrastructure and military sites...... The operation could aid Mr Netanyahu’s other vital goal of staying in power,” the WSJ reported on Saturday.

One week earlier, it added, Netanyahu’s opponents were poised to unseat him and form a new government, potentially ending the rule of the country’s longest-serving leader as he faces corruption charges.

The WSJ said that the past six days of national turmoil have offered the Israeli prime minister a political lifeline.

“Netanyahu has always thrived in environments of uncertainty, of chaos and crisis,” Mitchell Barak, an Israeli pollster and director of Keevoon Global Research, told the newspaper.

Read more: No action despite UN Security Council hearing pleas to end attacks on Palestine

Nearly 200 Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks

Israeli air strikes hammered the Gaza Strip Monday after a week of violence that has killed nearly 200 Palestinians, despite international calls for de-escalation.

Before dawn, in the space of just a few minutes, dozens of Israeli strikes bombarded the crowded coastal Palestinian enclave controlled by Hamas, according to AFP journalists and the army.

Flames lit up the sky as intense explosions shook Gaza city, sparking widespread power cuts and damaging hundreds of buildings, local authorities said. No casualties were immediately reported.

The renewed strikes come a day after 42 Palestinians in Gaza -- including at least eight children and two doctors, according to the health ministry -- were killed in the worst daily death toll in the enclave since the bombardments began.

In total, 197 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, including at least 58 children, and more than 1,200 wounded since Israel launched its air campaign against Hamas on May 10, according to the authorities there.