Yup, the wheels are coming off the cart.
Netanyahu Dissolves War Cabinet After 2 Key Members Quit
ByVivian Yee and Matthew Mpoke Bigg, NY Times
June 17, 2024
Here’s what we know:
The Israeli prime minister’s widely expected move came after two moderates resigned from the cabinet last week.
Netanyahu disbands his war cabinet after two of its five members quit.
The Israeli military says Hezbollah’s strikes risk a ‘wider escalation.’
Netanyahu says he didn’t know about Israel’s plans to reduce fighting in southern Gaza. Analysts are skeptical.
Aid groups welcome Israel’s pauses in fighting, but say it must do more to ease hunger.
U.S. Navy airlifts crew of merchant ship hit by the Houthis.
Netanyahu disbands his war cabinet after two of its five members quit.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has dissolved his war cabinet, an Israeli official said Monday, a move that had been widely expected after the departures of two key members prompted demands from far-right politicians for representation in the influential group that made key decisions about the conflict in Gaza.
The two members, Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot, quit Mr. Netanyahu’s small war cabinet last week amid disagreements over the direction of the war. The men, both former military chiefs, had been seen as voices of moderation in the five-member body, which was formed in October after the Hamas-led assault on Israel.
The Israeli official suggested that Mr. Netanyahu’s decision to disband the body — which was communicated to ministers at a wider cabinet meeting on Sunday — was largely symbolic given that Mr. Gantz and Mr. Eisenkot had already resigned.
Since their departures, discussions about the war have been driven by Mr. Netanyahu in conjunction with his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, and close advisers, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.
Dissolving the war cabinet formalizes that process. It may also defuse calls from Mr. Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partners who might have hoped to fill the places of Mr. Gantz and Mr. Eisenkot.
According to Mr. Eisenkot, the influence of one of those far-right leaders, Itamar Ben-Gvir, the minister of national security, had long loomed over the discussions in the war cabinet. After Mr. Gantz resigned, Mr. Ben-Gvir immediately demanded to join the group, writing on X that it was “about time to take brave decisions, achieve true deterrence, and bring true safety to the residents of the south, north, and all of Israel.”
Israeli news outlets reported on Monday that Mr. Netanyahu’s move to disband the war cabinet was a direct response to that demand.
For now, big decisions about the war in Gaza will still be put to a separate and broader security cabinet. That group includes Mr. Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister. Both have argued strongly that Israel’s military offensive in Gaza must continue until Hamas is destroyed.
The Israeli military warned on Sunday that Hezbollah was risking a wider confrontation by attacking Israel from Lebanon. It also said its own offensive in the Gazan city of Rafah would continue, though it has paused daytime military operations along a key aid route into the southern Gaza Strip.
A spokesman for Israel’s military made the warning about Hezbollah, a powerful militia and Lebanese political faction backed by Iran, in a post on social media late Sunday night.
“Hezbollah’s increasing aggression is bringing us to the brink of what could be a wider escalation — one that could have devastating consequences for Lebanon and the entire region,” said the spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari.
His comments echoed a threat that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made earlier this month, days after Hezbollah launched a barrage of rockets and exploding drones from Lebanon into northern Israel.
“Whoever thinks he can hurt us and we will respond by sitting on our hands is making a big mistake,” Mr. Netanyahu said while visiting soldiers and firefighters in northern Israel, according to his government. “We are prepared for very intense action in the north.”
Israel’s conflict with Hezbollah is intertwined with its battle against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Israel and Hezbollah have fired back and forth regularly in the months since the Oct. 7 assault on Israel by Hamas, another Iran-backed group, set off the war in Gaza. More than 150,000 people on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border have been displaced by the fighting there.
Hezbollah’s attacks have gradually intensified, with the group using larger and more sophisticated weapons to strike more often and deeper beyond the border. Both sides have stopped well short of the full-blown war that many feared was possible, but the tension has increased in the past week.
On Tuesday, an Israeli strike targeted and killed Taleb Abdallah, one of Hezbollah’s senior commanders, prompting the group to step up its own attacks the next day.
Two days later, the Israeli military said that its fighter jets had struck “Hezbollah military structures” overnight in Lebanese border villages. Then Hezbollah launched what Israeli officials called the most serious rocket and drone assault in more than eight months of hostilities, a barrage that lasted into the evening.
The United States, France and other mediators have sought for months to curb the exchanges of fire.
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