By Enyichukwu Enemanna
Israeli war cabinet minister Benny Gantz on Saturday threatened that he would resign from the body unless Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu approves a post-war governance plan for the Gaza Strip.
Netanyahu leads the military offensive in Gaza through his three-member war cabinet with Gantz and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
Both men in recent days have accused the Prime Minister of neglecting an exit strategy from Gaza that would see another Palestinian civilian entity take over governing the territory.
Gallant aired his criticism of Netanyahu’s handling of the war in a speech Thursday.
In a televised statement on Saturday evening, Gantz, an opposition figure and former general who joined Netanyahu’s coalition after Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, demanded the government agree a six-point plan, at a date not later than June 8.
He listed the plans to include, prioritizing the return of Israeli hostages from Gaza; returning Israeli civilians displaced by fighting near the restive Lebanon border to their homes by September; advancing a normalization deal for diplomatic ties with Saudi Arabia; creating a governing body, overseen by the U.S., European and Arab parties, and unspecified Palestinians, to manage Gaza’s civilian affairs after the war; and agreeing to a law for equal military and national service including ultra-Orthodox Jews who have long been exempt.
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If his demands are not met, Gantz said he would withdraw his centrist National Unity party, which polls suggest would emerge from new elections as the biggest group from the government.
“The choice is in your hands,” Gantz said, addressing Netanyahu directly. “The Netanyahu of a decade ago would have done the right thing. Are you willing to do the right and patriotic thing today?”
Netanyahu’s office accused Gantz of choosing to “issue an ultimatum to the Prime Minister instead of issuing an ultimatum to Hamas”.
“The conditions set by Gantz are washed-up words whose meaning is clear: the end of the war and defeat for Israel,” the prime minister’s office said in a statement.
Gantz’s ultimatum brings to a head months of tensions within Netanyahu’s government over the handling of the war, with Israel still far from achieving its goals of destroying Hamas and freeing the roughly 130 Israeli hostages it still holds in Gaza.
At the same time it is facing intense international criticism over the soaring humanitarian toll of its assault on the Palestinian enclave.
The departure of the National Unity party would not automatically topple Netanyahu’s five-party coalition or trigger early elections, as the prime minister and his far-right and ultrareligious allies would still control 64 seats in Israel’s 120-seat parliament
