Insights from Jewish Insider, The Guardian, Reuters and Haaretz
The news
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has dissolved its six-member war cabinet, officials said Monday, a week after the centrist opposition leader resigned Bennie Gantz.
The Jewish Insider reported that a source said the cabinet was formed as “part of the coalition agreement with Gantz, at his request. When Gantz left, such a forum no longer existed.”
SIGNALS
Gantz’s departure left ‘no counterbalance’ for Netanyahu
Gantz’s departure left Netanyahu with “no counterbalance” in his war cabinet and could no longer say his decisions on the war in Gaza had broad support, the Jewish Insider noted. With only religious groups left in the coalition, Netanyahu’s Likud party was the only ‘nominally secular’ party left in the coalition: Gantz’s departure gave ‘Netanyahu less political and diplomatic cover to say that Israel’s maneuvers getting support from both sides of the aisle.”
Netanyahu has spoken with the IDF in recent days
Israel’s military announced on Sunday that the military would implement a daily humanitarian pause in Gaza to allow aid into the enclave, a plan criticized by Netanyahu and highlighting growing divisions between him and the IDF. “We have a country with an army, not an army with a country,” he said, according to Israeli TV channels. The war cabinet has had a series of disagreements with the military over how the war has been conducted, and Gantz argued before his departure that Netanyahu did not have an effective strategy in Gaza, Reuters noted.
Israel is heading for war with Hezbollah in Lebanon
Disagreements are emerging among cabinet members and with the IDF as Netanyahu’s government appears to be heading towards a second war front, Haaretz’s military correspondent Amos Harel reported. Israel has exchanged fire with Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed militant organization in Lebanon, since the start of the war, but the fighting has intensified in recent days. France and the US are working to reach a ceasefire agreement in Gaza “before an all-out war breaks out” in the region, he noted, but Israeli officials have criticized these efforts, accusing France of being “anti-Israeli ” actions. Assessments “that the IDF will quite easily overcome Hezbollah in southern Lebanon sound disconnected from reality and are based on a misinterpretation of Israeli military strength,” Harel wrote.
