Gantz announces move to Gaza border town, four months after October 7
Israel lost valuable time in dismantling Hamas's rule over Gaza through "feet dragging," Gantz further said.
War cabinet minister and National Unity chairman Benny Gantz announced on Sunday evening, four months after southern Israel was ravaged by thousands of infiltrating Hamas terrorists on October 7 that he was moving to the Gaza border town of Yad Mordechai.
Israel lost valuable time in dismantling Hamas’s rule over Gaza through “feet dragging,” Gantz said.
Gantz appeared to denounce Benjamin Netanyahu’s public comments over the Gaza hostage deal, which the prime minister stressed would not be accepted “at any cost.”
“It is not right to share information with our enemies and to invent red lines, even if there are some,” Gantz said on Sunday. “My friends and I, too, have [red lines].
“Let’s keep them behind closed doors to avoid harming the efforts to get a good deal, even if it will be painful,” the minister added.
Likud: Netanyahu is fighting for total victory in Gaza
The Likud stated, in response to Gantz’s comments, that Netanyahu is “fighting for total victory.”
“Those who think that the entry of Palestinian Authority officials to the Gaza Strip will defeat Hamas are wrong,” the Knesset’s ruling faction stated. “There is no alternative to a complete victory.”
The exchange came amid a noticeable rise in political tension between Netanyahu and the right-wing camp in general and Gantz and fellow war cabinet member, Minister-without-Portfolio Gadi Eisenkot, over conduct surrounding a possible hostage deal.
Reports emerged during the past two weeks of a potential deal in which Israel will cease its operations in Gaza for over a month and release a large number of Palestinian terrorists in exchange for freeing some 35 hostages. The reports led far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir to announce last week that he would leave the government over such a deal; hours later, Netanyahu announced forcefully that he would not enable the release of a large number of terrorists.
However, Gantz and Eisenkot claimed that no numbers were mentioned yet and that Israel is currently waiting for an answer from Hamas regarding the deal’s principle agreements. Some politicians claimed that Netanyahu was discussing the false details of the deal publicly to perform for his base of hard-right voters, a growing number of whom have shifted to supporting Ben-Gvir.
Gantz and other members of his National Unity party said publicly that if they sense that Netanyahu is delaying tough decisions for political reasons, they will leave the government. While the entire party agreed in a meeting on Monday that the time for such a move was not ripe, Gantz’s “dragging feet” comment on Tuesday evening indicated growing frustration.
Gantz and Eisenkot’s party leaving the government is widely viewed as the trigger that will set off mass protests across the country.
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