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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has fired Defense Minister Yoav Gallant after months of clashes over domestic politics and disagreements over Israel's war effort.
In a taped statement Tuesday evening, Netanyahu said that "over the past few months, this trust between me and the defense minister has been cracked."
Israel Katz, currently foreign minister, will become defense minister and Gideon Sa'ar will replace Katz as foreign minister, the prime minister's office said Tuesday.
Gallant responded to the decision shortly after it became public, posting on X that: "Israel's security has been and always will be my lifelong mission."
Israel's political class has long speculated that Netanyahu would fire Gallant and replace him with a political ally to shore up his domestic power.
Netanyahu has struggled to maintain control over his fragile governing coalition, a tangle of competing interests whose collapse could spell the end of his leadership.
The relationship between the two men was rarely cordial and often caustic. There was little love between them — over the state of negotiations with Hamas, Israel's military strategy and Netanyahu's bid to bring about a comprehensive overhaul of the judiciary in 2023.
Netanyahu and Gallant have often disagreed over the war in Gaza. In August, Gallant told a closed-door Knesset committee that Netanyahu's goal of "absolute victory" in Gaza was "nonsense," according to Israeli media.
Netanyahu then took the extraordinary step of issuing a press statement accusing Gallant of endorsing an "anti-Israel narrative."
Gallant was also highly critical of Netanyahu's emphasis on Israeli control of a strip of territory along the Gaza-Egypt border, known as the Philadelphia Corridor, calling it a "moral disgrace".
In cabinet, he voted against continuing the occupation there, seeing it as an obstacle to a ceasefire and hostage agreement.
" If we want the hostages alive, we don't have time ," he said.
Netanyahu had faced pressure from far-right members of his cabinet to fire him, with National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir saying in September that he had been calling for Gallant's removal for months "and the time has come for do so immediately."
Reform in justice
Netanyahu's relationship with Gallant soured when the prime minister threatened to fire him in March 2023 after he criticized the government's justice reform legislation. The bill, which provoked widespread popular protests in Israel, would give the ruling coalition more influence over the selection of judges.
Gallant was the first minister to oppose it, saying: “Deepening division is seeping into the military and security agencies - this is a clear, immediate and real danger to Israel's security. I'm not going to make it easy."
Netanyahu said he would fire the defense minister, but reversed his position under pressure. The animosity between the two men has continued and grown since the Hamas attack last October.
One source of tension has been the enlistment of ultra-Orthodox men in the Israel Defense Forces, which Gallant has supported. Far-right cabinet members - on whom Netanyahu depends for the survival of his government - have resisted the move./CNN
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