IDF General (res.) Yossi Peled slammed Defense Minister Ehud Barak during a meeting of Likud party activists in Tel Aviv on Monday night. “I have never heard of a country that could put up with rocket fire,” he said. Peled added that Israel must “guarantee our physical existence as a Jewish state.”

Peled's criticism came in response to Barak's statement earlier in the evening saying Israel's temporary ceasefire with Hamas had been successful. The temporary ceasefire brought the number of monthly rocket attacks on Israeli towns down from approximately 500 to an average of 10, Barak said.