In the midst of conflict

Netanyahu fires Defense Minister Gallant

(Bild: AFP/DEBBIE HILL / AFP / picturedesk.com)

Israel is in the midst of several military conflicts: in addition to the campaign against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, it is also engaged in fierce battles with Hezbollah militias in Lebanon. In the midst of this turmoil, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fires Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. 

The reason was that there were too many differences between the two politicians over Israel's conduct of the war, Netanyahu's office announced. Trust in Gallant had "eroded". The new Defense Minister will be Foreign Minister Israel Katz. Gideon Saar, head of the conservative New Hope party, is to take over the Foreign Ministry.

Netanyahu's former rival becomes minister
From June 2021 to December 2022, Saar was Israeli Justice Minister and Deputy Prime Minister in the cabinets of Prime Ministers Naftali Bennett and Jair Lapid. As a member of the national-conservative Likud party, he was a member of the Knesset from 2003 to 2014 and served as Israel's Minister of Education from 2009 to 2013 and Minister of the Interior in 2013/2014. After a failed bid for the chairmanship of the national-conservative Likud bloc, Saar founded the New Hope party in December 2020. He was once considered Netanyahu's biggest rival in the Likud bloc.

In the wake of the Hamas massacre on October 7 and the subsequent Gaza war, Saar initially joined Netanyahu's right-wing religious government as part of an alliance. In March, however, he announced his resignation because Netanyahu had not made him an active member of the war cabinet. At the end of September 2024, Saar joined the Prime Minister's security cabinet as a minister without portfolio.

Gallant announced his departure on the internet platform X: "The security of the State of Israel will always remain the mission of my life."

Members of the opposition criticized the dismissal. "Politics at the expense of national security", criticized the chairman of the National Unity, Benny Gantz, a former member of Netanyahu's now dissolved war cabinet. The right-wing police minister Ben Gvir, on the other hand, welcomed the dismissal. Victory in the war was impossible with Gallant.