Senior Ukrainian officials harshly criticized Defense Minister Benny Gantz on Wednesday following his statement that Israel will continue to refrain from supplying weapons to the Eastern European country in its protracted war with Russia.
Speaking to EU ambassadors earlier Wednesday, Gantz presented a fresh humanitarian aid package for Ukraine that would include the construction of a smart missile defense alert system similar to the one that exists in Israel.
“We'll continue to support and stand by Ukraine, NATO and the West, but we won't send weapons to Kyiv,” he said.
“We send humanitarian aid to Ukraine and provide lifesaving and defensive systems. We will continue to support Ukraine within our limits as we have done so far.
We called on Ukraine to give us information that would allow us to help build and provide a smart alert system against aerial and other threats. This system will have advantages in saving civilian lives and concentrating the alerts and sirens in relevant areas."
Kyiv officials dismissed the package as “too little, too late.”
"The Ukrainian delegation that visited Israel last December, even before the outbreak of the war, raised a request for such an alert system," said the officials in Kyiv.
"But to say it now, it seems like a joke that a person asks for a piece of bread and someone offers you a spoon. Unfortunately, this is Gantz's traditional position. We await the Ukrainian foreign minister’s call with Prime Minister Yair Lapid and hope for good news from there," they added, referring to a phone call between Kyiv’s top diplomat Dymtro Kuleba and the Israeli premier scheduled for Thursday.
The call will be held following an official note that Ukraine sent to the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem, containing an explicit request to receive Israeli air defense systems as soon as possible.
Gantz’s office said on Wednesday that he will hold a call with his Ukrainian counterpart, Oleksiy Reznikov, on Thursday.
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The official request letter from Ukraine to the Foreign Ministry to receive air defense systems
Meanwhile, the parliament in Kyiv on Wednesday also called on Israel to supply Ukraine with weapons.
The legislature also called on the government of Ukraine to sever diplomatic relations with Iran for what it dubbed “the Islamic Republic's support for aggression against the country” as Kyiv claims Tehran has provided Moscow with suicide drones that were used against Ukrainian cities.