Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fired Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, replacing him with Israel Katz to lead the war in Gaza and Lebanon.
Netanyahu’s critics accused him of putting politics above national security as Israel prepares for retaliation by Iran following airstrikes on the Islamic Republic on 26 October. Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid said that “firing Gallant in the middle of a war is an act of madness.”
Gideon Saar has been appointed as the new foreign minister in place of Katz.
Gallant and Netanyahu, both from the Likud party, have been arguing for months over the aims of Israel’s 13-month war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The conflict entered a new phase after the assassination of top commanders of Hamas and the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah. Netanyahu said Gallant had made statements that “contradict the decisions of the government and the decisions of the cabinet.” In response, Gallant stated:
The security of the state of Israel always was and will always remain my life’s mission.
As the newly appointed defence minister Katz vowed to bring back Israeli hostages from Gaza and destroy Hamas and Hezbollah.
I accept this responsibility with a sense of mission and holy fear for the security of the State of Israel and its citizens.
When he was foreign minister, he barred UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres from entering Israel over what he called a failure to condemn an Iranian missile strike. In September, Katz rejected US and French proposals for a 21-day ceasefire in Lebanon.
Meanwhile, Itamar Ben-Gvir, a minister in Netanyahu’s coalition government, praised Tuesday’s decision, saying Gallant was “deeply trapped in the conception” that it was “not possible to achieve absolute victory.”
