Israel-Hamas war: Benjamin Netanyahu disbands war cabinet after key partner exits

On October 11, the government established the war cabinet to oversee the nation’s military operations against Hamas and Hezbollah.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has disbanded the six-member war cabinet, which was formed on October 11 to oversee the military campaigns against Hamas and Hezbollah, according to Reuters on Monday. This decision follows the resignation of centrist former general Benny Gantz, one of the three cabinet members, from the Netanyahu-led coalition government.

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Netanyahu’s Next Steps and Coalition Pressures

Netanyahu now plans to consult on the Gaza war with a small group of ministers, including Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, both of whom were members of the war cabinet. The Israeli prime minister is also under pressure from his nationalist-religious coalition partners, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who are demanding inclusion in the war cabinet. Gantz joined Netanyahu in a national unity government at the start of the war, leading to the formation of this cabinet, after Hamas’s October 7 attack, which caused around 1,200 deaths and the taking of 250 hostages.

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Cabinet Resignations and Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza

The war cabinet also included Gantz’s partner, Gadi Eisenkot, and Aryeh Deri, head of the religious Shas party, as observers. However, last week, both Gantz and Eisenkot left the government, citing Netanyahu’s failure to establish a strategy for the Gaza war, according to Reuters. Since the October 7 attack, Israel’s military campaign against Hamas has resulted in over 37,000 Palestinian deaths, as reported by the Palestinian health ministry. The offensive has devastated much of Gaza, creating a humanitarian crisis, with the UN reporting that hundreds of thousands of people are on the brink of famine.

On Sunday, the Israeli military announced a daytime pause in fighting along a route in southern Gaza to facilitate the backlog of humanitarian aid deliveries for Palestinians. However, this decision faced criticism from Netanyahu, Reuters reported. “When the prime minister heard about an 11-hour humanitarian pause in the morning, he immediately told his military secretary that this was unacceptable to him,” an unnamed Israeli official stated to the agency.

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