The son of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been blasted for staying back in Miami while reservists returned home to fight against Hamas.
Yair Netanyahu, 32, has been in Florida since April after his father told him to stop making inflammatory posts on social media, which saw him sued for defamation multiple times.
About 360,000 reservists have been called up, with many of them dropping everything to fly back to Israel to help fight against Hamas.
But Yair has remained in Miami, to the irritation of some of the troops. ‘Yair is enjoying his life at Miami Beach while I’m on the front lines,’ one soldier, a volunteer serving on Israel’s northern front, told The Times.
‘It’s us who are leaving our work, our families, our kids, to protect our families back home and the country, not the people who are responsible for this situation.
‘Our brothers, our fathers, sons, are all going to the front line, but Yair is still not here. It does not help build trust in the leadership of the country.’
Another, deployed to the border with Gaza, said: ‘I’ve flown back from the States where I have a job, a life, my family.
‘There is no way I can stay there and abandon my country, my people, at this critical time. Where is the prime minister’s son? Why isn’t he in Israel?
‘It is the most uniting moment for us as Israelis in our recent history and every single one of us should be here right now, including the prime minister’s son.’
Yair, who studied theatre at high school, undertook compulsory military service and worked in the spokesman’s unit of IDF, rather than as a combat soldier.
Military service is compulsory for the majority of Israelis when they turn 18. Men have to serve 32 months and women 24.
After this, most of them can be called up to reserve units until the age of 40, or even older, in case of a national emergency, and they fight alongside the regular troops in times of war.