T. Belman. After Sa’ar rejected the post of Def Minister, I thought that Netanyahu was stuck with Gallant because he had no one to replace him with. Apparently I was wrong.
Both Foreign Minister Katz and Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter, a former Shin Bet head, are seen as possible candidates to replace him.
Israeli TV says Netanyahu has convened ad-hoc forum 3 times in past week, with exclusion of defense minister seen as ‘political hazing’ in wake of reports he is set to be ousted
ToI staff 26 September 2024, 2:12 am
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has been excluded from at least three security consultations that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held with a select group of ministers in recent days amid the intensified fighting with Hezbollah, Hebrew media reported Wednesday.
The most recent meeting, held Wednesday before a security cabinet session, included the premier, Foreign Minister Israel Katz, Justice Minister Yariv Levin, Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, Transportation Minister Miri Regev, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Regional Cooperation Minister David Amsalem, according to Channel 12 news, which noted the ad-hoc forum is not an official body.
Similar meetings with a slightly different mix of ministers were also held on Saturday and Sunday without Gallant, the report said.
The exact purpose of the recent meetings was not made clear by the report, though it was speculated Gallant’s exclusion was a form of “political hazing” a week after widespread reports said his dismissal was imminent, with the opposition’s New Hope party chair Gideon Sa’ar in talks with Netanyahu to replace him.
Sa’ar announced on Saturday he could not accept the defense portfolio due to the escalation with Hezbollah, delaying Gallant’s ouster for the time being. But reports have indicated that Netanyahu remains determined to fire Gallant in the near future, with Foreign Minister Katz and Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter, a former Shin Bet head, seen as possible candidates to replace him.
Relations between Gallant and Netanyahu have been tense ever since Netanyahu announced he was firing Gallant in March 2023 over his criticism of the judicial overhaul. But he soon walked back the move under intense public pressure.
Members of Netanyahu’s cabinet, some of whom are included in the forum that Channel 12 reported on, have been calling for Gallant’s termination for months, angered, among other things, by his opposition to an ultra-Orthodox military enlistment bill backed by the government and his public break with the prime minister over a proposed hostage deal along with the premier’s demand to retain control over Gaza’s Philadelphi Corridor under any agreement.
After more than 11 months of cross-border violence — beginning October 8, when Hezbollah started firing rockets at Israel in support of its ally Hamas, one day after Hamas carried out a massacre in Israel — Israel and Hezbollah have stepped up fighting in recent days, with hundreds of rockets fired at Israel and intensive IDF airstrikes on Hezbollah sites in Lebanon, as well as the targeted assassinations of a number of the terror group’s leaders.
Sam Sokol contributed to this report.
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