Benjamin Netanyahu criticized Benny Gantz for his demands
Jerusalem:
Israeli War Cabinet Minister Benny Gantz said on Saturday he would resign from the body unless Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved a post-war plan for the Gaza Strip.
“The war cabinet must formulate and approve by June 8 an action plan that will lead to the achievement of six strategic objectives of national importance. (or) we will be forced to resign from the government,” Gantz said, referring to his party. , in a televised speech addressed to Netanyahu.
Gantz said the six objectives included overthrowing Hamas, ensuring Israeli security control over Palestinian territory and returning Israeli hostages.
“In addition to maintaining Israeli security control, establish an American, European, Arab and Palestinian administration that will manage civil affairs in the Gaza Strip and lay the foundation for a future alternative other than Hamas or (Mahmud) Abbas,” he said he, referring to the president of the Palestinian Authority.
He also called for the normalization of ties with Saudi Arabia “as part of a global movement that will create an alliance with the free world and the Arab world against Iran and its affiliates.”
Netanyahu responded to Gantz’s threat on Saturday, calling the minister’s demands “useless words whose meaning is clear: an end to the war and a defeat for Israel, the abandonment of most of the hostages, leaving Hamas intact and the establishment of a state Palestinian.”
The Israeli army has been fighting Hamas in the Gaza Strip for more than seven months. But major divisions have emerged in the Israeli war cabinet in recent days after Hamas fighters regrouped in northern Gaza, an area where Israel previously said the group had been neutralized.
Netanyahu was personally attacked by Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Wednesday for not ruling out an Israeli government in Gaza after the war.
The war in Gaza erupted after Hamas’ October 7 attack on southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP count of official Israeli data.
Hamas also captured about 250 hostages, 124 of whom Israel estimates remain in Gaza, including 37 the military says are dead.
Israel’s military retaliation against Hamas has killed at least 35,386 people, most of them civilians, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, and an Israeli siege has sparked dire food shortages and the threat of famine.
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