Yair Golan, the leader of the opposition Democrats who served as deputy chief of staff for Israel’s military before entering politics, said that after an unjustifiably brutal campaign, much of the damage had already been done.

Netanyahu’s government was making the country as isolated as apartheid-era South Africa, he told Reshet Bet radio.

“A sane country doesn’t engage in fighting against civilians, doesn’t kill babies as a hobby and doesn’t set the expulsion of a population as a goal,” he said.