Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has dissolved his six-member war cabinet, an expected move that follows the departure of centrist opposition leader Benny Gantz and his ally Gadi Eisenkot.
Israeli media report that sensitive issues regarding the war with Hamas in Gaza will now be decided by a smaller forum.
Since Mr Gantz resigned eight days ago over what he said was a lack of war strategy, far-right ministers have called for his replacement.
By dissolving the war cabinet, Mr. Netanyahu avoids a sticky situation with his coalition partners and international allies.
A spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that as far as it was concerned, this would not affect the chain of command.
Gantz and Eisenkot joined a national unity government with Mr Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition days after the war began in October.
The two former IDF chiefs of staff announced their resignations on June 9, with Gantz saying the prime minister’s leadership was “preventing us from getting closer to a real victory.”
Immediately afterwards, the far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said he had written to Mr Netanyahu demanding he be added to the war cabinet.
On Sunday evening, Mr. Netanyahu reportedly informed ministers that he had decided to dissolve the decision-making body rather than recruit new members.
“The (war) cabinet was in the coalition agreement with Gantz at his request. As soon as Gantz is gone, there is no need for a cabinet,” he said. according to the Jerusalem Post.
Haaretz reported that some of the issues previously discussed by the war cabinet would be transferred for discussion in the 14-member security cabinet, including Mr Ben-Gvir and his fellow far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
He said sensitive decisions would be discussed in a “smaller consultation forum,” which is expected to include Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and the chairman of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, Aryeh Deri. The three men were part of the war cabinet alongside the prime minister, Mr Gantz and Mr Eisenkot.
The IDF’s chief spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, insisted Monday that such measures would not affect its operations.
“The cabinet members are changed and the method is changed. We have the echelon, we know the chain of command. We work according to the chain of command. It is a democracy,” he told reporters.
The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza to destroy Hamas in response to an unprecedented attack on southern Israel on October 7, in which around 1,200 people were killed and 251 others taken hostage.
Since then, more than 37,340 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
New signs of tension have emerged within the Israeli government in recent days, with Mr Netanyahu and his far-right ministers criticizing the IDF’s decision to introduce “tactical pauses in military activity” during the day near the town of Rafah, south of Gaza, to allow more deliveries of humanitarian aid.
The breaks are intended to allow trucks to collect aid at the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom border crossing, southeast of Rafah, and then travel safely to reach the main north-south route inside Gaza. Supplies have been blocked at the crossing since Israel launched an operation in Rafah last month.
But Mr. Ben-Gvir called the policy senseless, while Israeli media quoted Mr. Netanyahu as saying: “We have a country with an army, not an army with a country.”
The Israeli military responded by saying the pauses did not mean a halt to fighting in southern Gaza, which created confusion over what exactly was happening on the ground.
The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), which is the largest humanitarian organization in Gaza, reported on Monday that fighting continued in Rafah and elsewhere in the south and that “operationally, nothing has changed again.”
At the same time, the IDF said its troops were “continuing their targeted, intelligence-based operations in the Rafah area.” He added that they located weapons, struck structures rigged with explosives and eliminated “several terrorists” in the Tal al-Sultan area.
With few signs of progress toward a full ceasefire in Gaza, the Israeli military has fresh warnings that the lower-level conflict with the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah now threatens to escalate into a broader war.
Following a recent escalation in firefights, a key U.S. diplomat is returning to the region to try to reduce tensions on the Israel-Lebanon border.
