Benny Gantz speaks at the Department of Defense in Arlington, Virginia, in December 2021. Gantz, a former army chief and current minister in Israel's three-member wartime cabinet, said he would resign from government within three weeks if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not move forward with the plan. Replace Hamas in Gaza.
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Benny Gantz speaks at the Department of Defense in Arlington, Virginia, in December 2021. Gantz, a former army chief and current minister in Israel's three-member wartime cabinet, said he would resign from government within three weeks if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not move forward with the plan. Replace Hamas in Gaza.
Alex Wong/Getty Images
TEL AVIV, ISRAEL – Key members of Israel's wartime cabinet said Saturday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will resign from power within three weeks if he does not move forward with a plan to replace Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
The ultimatum by Benny Gantz, a former military commander and current cabinet member in Israel's three-member war cabinet, reflects growing dissatisfaction among the Israeli leadership and Prime Minister Netanyahu's far-right political partners over the protracted war in Gaza. is reflected. This move could pose a serious challenge to the stability of Netanyahu's government.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is leading the military offensive in Gaza through his three-member war cabinet, which includes Gantz and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Within days, both men accused the prime minister of ignoring an exit strategy from Gaza that would have seen another Palestinian civilian group take over control of the strip. Gallant expressed criticism of Netanyahu's handling of the war in a speech Thursday.
In a speech on Saturday and a letter to Netanyahu, Gantz laid out a six-point plan that he asked the prime minister to adopt by June 8. Israeli civilians who have been displaced by fighting near the Lebanese border, where unrest continues, will be returned to their homelands by September. Promote the normalization agreement with Saudi Arabia. Create a governing body overseen by U.S., European, and Arab political parties and unspecified Palestinians to manage civilian affairs in postwar Gaza. and agree to laws for equal military and national service, including for ultra-Orthodox Jews, who have long been exempt.
“We need a strategic shift,” Gantz said in a televised speech. He told Prime Minister Netanyahu: “The choice is in your hands…This is the moment of truth.”
Gantz, a centrist, said he would resign if Netanyahu did not agree to his plan and seek an agreed date for early national elections.
Prime Minister Netanyahu relies on the support of far-right politicians in his coalition, many of whom have a different vision for Gaza's future. The idea is to encourage the Palestinians to leave, build Jewish settlements, and claim the Gaza Strip as part of Israel's territory. Some of them argue that Israeli military operations in Gaza take precedence over the negotiated agreement with Hamas for the return of Israeli hostages.
Prime Minister Netanyahu has resisted US demands to replace Hamas with a reformed Palestinian Authority, a Western-backed Palestinian leadership. He also opposes the idea of a future Palestinian state, which Saudi Arabia has made a precondition for any normalization deal with Israel.
Gantz's resignation from power will not automatically lead to the collapse of Netanyahu's coalition government. But it would remove a key counterweight to Netanyahu's far-right partners, leaving him little room to maneuver between U.S. demands to reduce the war and his coalition's demands to escalate the war. It disappears.
Political commentator Dafna Riel told Israel Channel 12 that if Prime Minister Netanyahu can maintain a coalition government until parliament adjourns at the end of July, he could remain in power until the end of the year.
Relatives and supporters of Israelis held hostage by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip will demonstrate in Tel Aviv on Saturday to demand their release.
Jack Ghez/AFP via Getty Images
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Relatives and supporters of Israelis held hostage by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip will demonstrate in Tel Aviv on Saturday to demand their release.
Jack Ghez/AFP via Getty Images
Massive demonstrations took place in Tel Aviv and across Israel on Saturday night, demanding a deal to release the remaining Israeli hostages in Gaza and demanding early elections. One Tel Aviv demonstration featured speeches by hostage families, the ambassadors of the United States, Britain and Germany, and a videotaped speech by Hillary Clinton.
Also on Saturday, the Israeli military announced that it had recently recovered the additional body of an Israeli civilian killed on October 7 and taken to Gaza by Hamas militants, as well as the bodies of three other Israelis. Israel says 128 hostages are believed to remain in Gaza, including 38 whom Israel has declared dead.
Gaza health authorities report more than 80 Palestinians killed in past day
This image provided by the US military shows trucks carrying humanitarian aid from the United Arab Emirates and the US Agency for International Development crossing the Trident Pier and arriving at the coast of the Gaza Strip on Friday.
Staff Sergeant Malcolm Cohens-Ashley/U.S. Army, via AP
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Staff Sergeant Malcolm Cohens-Ashley/U.S. Army, via AP
This image provided by the US military shows trucks carrying humanitarian aid from the United Arab Emirates and the US Agency for International Development crossing the Trident Pier and arriving at the coast of the Gaza Strip on Friday.
Staff Sergeant Malcolm Cohens-Ashley/U.S. Army, via AP
Heavy fighting continued Saturday across the Gaza Strip, including eastern Rafah, with Gaza health authorities reporting more than 80 Palestinian deaths in the past day. The United Nations reports that women and children are among those killed in Israeli airstrikes in recent days. This week, several Israeli soldiers were killed in friendly fire. Israel said its troops had discovered tunnels and weapons facilities and killed militants.
The head of the main United Nations agency in Gaza said nearly half of Rafah's population, or about 800,000 Palestinians, had been evacuated from the southern city of Gaza since Israeli forces entered the eastern part of the city two weeks ago. He said there was.
The Israeli military says a rare Israeli airstrike in the occupied West Bank has killed a prominent Palestinian militant in the city of Jenin. Along the Lebanon-Israel border, Israel attacked Hezbollah targets and there was artillery fire from Lebanon toward Israel.
Also on Saturday, the U.S. military announced that the first aid truck had landed from a floating pier off the coast of Gaza, aimed at alleviating hunger in the city. U.N. officials said more than twice the amount of aid expected to be delivered by sea is needed to meet needs in Gaza.
Aron Avital, Hadeel Al Sharchi and Lauren Migaki contributed to this article from Tel Aviv.
