Israel oppo­si­tion leader Yair Lapid to trav­el to Wash­ing­ton

Israeli oppo­si­tion leader Yair Lapid will trav­el to Wash­ing­ton, D.C., next week, accord­ing to Israeli media.
The focus of his trip will be “strength­en­ing the Israel‑U.S. strate­gic rela­tion­ship, bring­ing the hostages back home, and Israel’s role in the region,” an unnamed per­son from Lapid’s office told the Times of Israel on Tues­day.
Lapid is a polit­i­cal rival of Israeli Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Netanyahu, whom he has been crit­i­cal of for his han­dling of the Oct. 7 Hamas ter­ror­ist attack and Israel’s sub­se­quent mil­i­tary response in Gaza.
Ear­li­er this week, Lapid said hold­ing elec­tions before the end of the war “is not ide­al,” but he stressed that it’s nec­es­sary “because this gov­ern­ment won’t fix the bud­get, won’t fix the [Hare­di] draft, and, espe­cial­ly, won’t bring home the hostages. And you know what? It also won’t win the war because we won’t have the world with us and won’t have the peop …