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When Yoav Gallant recorded a televised statement criticizing Israel's judicial reforms in March 2023, Benjamin Netanyahu fired him. A few days later, after massive protests in the streets, the Minister of Defense was reinstated.
Gallant has again appeared on television to criticize Israel's prime minister, this time for the lack of a "plan for post-war Gaza. He suggested that Netanyahu's indecision was undermining the country's security and leading to a de facto military control of Gaza.
The bad blood between the prime minister and the defense minister is no secret, but putting it this way was a dramatic move. That he remains in office despite calls from the far right for his impeachment speaks as much to the weakness of Netanyahu's hold on power as it does to the logic behind Gallant's intervention.
On Wednesday night, at the same time Gallant was holding his press conference, five Israeli soldiers were killed and seven were seriously wounded in a friendly fire incident in Jabaliya, northern Gaza.
Jabaliya was one of the first areas Israeli forces entered after October 7. Four months ago they announced that they had dismantled the Hamas battalions in the refugee camp and yet they have been forced back in large numbers because Hamas has regrouped and remains a threat there.
This is what uprisings do, but Netanyahu apparently failed to foresee. How often, in past wars, have we seen militant forces falter in the face of a superior army, only to return later, alive to fight another day.
Delaying a plan for civilian rule of Gaza, as Netanyahu has been doing for months now, has left a vacuum in much of Gaza, and suddenly Hamas is back in areas that Israel had clearly declared.
Israeli forces are also back, this time with special battlefield experience, but increasingly frustrated by the political indecision that has returned them war-weary.
In the absence of a clear strategy and without a vision for "the day after," Israeli troops risk being dragged into a war lasting years, not months. Perhaps this is Netanyahu's plan after all, but his call for "total victory" is a fantasy—militant groups and terrorist organizations have an annoying habit of regenerating.
What is needed is an alternative to Hamas, another option for the governance of Gaza. This would put pressure on the group and create a political path for Arab states and the West to come together.
Gallant knows this and, reportedly, so do senior Israeli security figures. Gallant is trying to force Netanyahu to make a decision, something he has been avoiding, but with Israeli soldiers still dying in Gaza, soon it won't be just his defense minister publicly turning against him./SkyNews
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