- author, Jake Lapham
- role, BBC News
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Israel’s War Cabinet Minister Benny Gantz has resigned from the emergency government in a sign of deepening divisions over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s post-conflict plans for Gaza.
At a press conference in Tel Aviv on Sunday announcing his resignation, Gantz said the decision was taken with a “heavy heart.”
“Unfortunately, Netanyahu has prevented us from getting any closer to a real victory, which is the basis for the painful crisis that continues today,” he said.
The former army general and frequent critic of Netanyahu also called on the prime minister to set a date for elections.
Netanyahu responded in a post on X: “Benny, now is not the time to stop campaigning. It’s time to join forces.”
Last month, Gantz set a June 8 deadline for Netanyahu to show how Israel will achieve six “strategic objectives”, including ending Hamas rule in the Gaza Strip and establishing a multinational civilian government there.
At the time, the prime minister dismissed the remarks as “meaningless words which represent Israel’s defeat.”
Gantz is a retired army general and was a member of Israel’s key decision-making body, the “war cabinet,” along with the prime minister and defence minister Yoav Galant.
Gantz told a news conference that he would not only personally resign from the government, but also leave his own party, the National Unity Party, of which he is leader.
The move is unlikely to topple the Israeli government, as Netanyahu still holds a comfortable majority of 64 seats in the 120-seat Knesset.
But it exposes deep political divisions over how the prime minister is managing the war.
Gantz, a political rival of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a former chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, whose centrist National Unity Party was in the opposition until Oct. 11, 2023, when war broke out following the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, and on that day Gantz agreed with Netanyahu to form an emergency government.
The National Unity Party holds five positions in the emergency government.
Gantz’s influence in government was widely seen as a counterbalance to the far-right wings of Netanyahu’s ruling coalition.
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