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Gloves are off for Netanyahu and Gantz in election bout

The main challenger to Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel's April elections had long sought to fight clean, but the gloves are now off after a series of attacks by the premier.

The leader of the Israel Resilience Party Benny Gantz goes on the offensive on February 19, 2019, in the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv ahead of the April 9 general election

Responding to repeated barbs by Netanyahu -- and to slipping poll numbers, commentators said -- Benny Gantz chided the prime minister on Tuesday night for spending years studying and working in business in the US.

"When I lay in muddy foxholes with my soldiers on frozen winter nights, you, Benjamin Netanyahu, left Israel to improve your English and practice it at luxurious cocktail parties," Gantz told a gathering of his centrist Israel Resilience party.

The decorated former armed forces chief said that in Netanyahu's near 13 years as prime minister, he and those around him had become "addicted to the pleasures of power, corruption and hedonism."

Netanyahu, under investigation on suspicion of multiple corruption offences, hit back immediately, highlighting his military experience and arguing that his English oratory has benefited Israel.

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"Benny Gantz, be ashamed of yourself," the prime minister said in a video clip posted by his Likud party shortly after the ex-general's speech.

"You attack me...who commanded many operations beyond enemy lines, who was wounded in the operation to free Sabena hostages... who risked my life time and time again for our country."

The clip showed black-and-white photos of a young Netanyahu training with the Sayeret Matkal special forces unit.

Netanyahu was shot in the bicep by fellow commando Marco Ashkenazi as they stormed a Sabena airliner taken over by Palestinian hijackers en route from Brussels to Tel Aviv in 1972.

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Israeli election campaigns are always rough-and-tumble affairs, but the contest for the April 9 poll is shaping up to be particularly brutal.

"This is the battle for the crown, it's dirty," Israeli public radio's veteran political analyst Hanan Kristal said Wednesday after the tit-for-tat episode.

"It's Thai boxing, without rules -- hitting below the belt," he said of Gantz's assault.

"It's to show the right 'I am not afraid of Netanyahu'."

In an escalating war of words since Gantz launched his campaign on January 29, Netanyahu's Likud has repeatedly struck out at the contender, seeking to label him a "weak" leftist.

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Earlier this week, it made unsubstantiated accusations that Gantz, while military chief, conspired with former US president Barack Obama's administration on a plan for a full Israeli withdrawal from occupied Palestinian territories.

The Israel Resilience party denounced the claim as "lies, lies, lies", while some Israeli media and others called it absurd.

Polls show Netanyahu is likely to remain premier after the election.

But the attorney general is expected to announce in the coming weeks whether he intends to charge the prime minister on the graft allegations.

An announcement before voting day could shake up the campaign.

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After a restrained maiden speech last month Gantz polled strongly -- surveys published by Israel's three main television stations gave his party between 21 and 24 seats in the 120-member parliament.

But he has slipped since, with the latest polls for privately-owned Channel 12 TV and the Kan public broadcaster giving him 18 and 20 seats respectively.

Both surveys predicted 30 seats for Netanyahu's Likud.

"Benny Gantz took the stage at the Tel Aviv Fairgrounds Tuesday night with a single goal in mind –- stopping his... party from sliding in the polls," the Haaretz daily wrote.

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The top-selling Yediot Aharonot newspaper said that Gantz was obliged to respond to Netanyahu's attacks and to a comment by Yair Lapid, head of the rival centrist Yesh Atid party.

"In a situation in which Netanyahu has been making completely baseless attacks on him daily and Lapid has accused him of lacking a fighting spirit, Benny Gantz no longer had the luxury of sitting on the fence," political commentator Nahum Barnea wrote.

Barnea contended that despite Netanyahu's exemplary military service and political skills, Gantz's attack on his governance was fair.

"Along the way, he became a corrupt hedonist. The criticism that Gantz and (former Israeli defence minister Moshe) Yaalon levelled against him on that issue last night in their speeches was completely justified."

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