In the midst of the American election, Netanyahu settles accounts with his Defense Minister Yoav Gallant

Published on November 5, 2024 at 9:36 p.m. / Modified on November 5, 2024 at 9:41 p.m.

As soon as the announcement fell on Tuesday evening in Israel, hundreds of demonstrators headed towards the Ayalon highway which bypasses Tel Aviv to express their anger against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who fired his Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. He will be replaced by the current Minister of Foreign Affairs Israel Katz (Likud), himself replaced by Gideon Saar (New Hope, former minister and rival of Netanyahu in Likud), who joined the coalition at the end of September as minister without wallet.

A game of musical chairs which can be explained by deep disagreements between Gallant and Netanyahu, even if they are both “likudnikim”. The two major themes on which they argue? The consequences for Gaza and the conscription of ultra-Orthodox Jews. Yoav Gallant was particularly indignant at the fact that the initial plan of the Israeli general staff advising to establish a local and non-hostile alternative to Hamas in Gaza had not been seriously debated. There will be no Israeli military or civilian rule in the enclave; Netanyahu must facilitate “an alternative governance to Hamas in Gaza” which is not the Jewish state, said this soldier who led the Cast Lead offensive in Gaza in 2008. A posture very different from that of the Zionist religious parties which support Netanyahu, many of whose activists go so far as to hope to reoccupy Gaza.

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