Israel’s war cabinet minister has resigned from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s emergency government.
Benny Gantz said leaving his post was a “complex and painful decision” to make but Mr Netanyahu was “preventing real victory” over Hamas, the militant group Israel has been fighting in Gaza for the past eight months.
Mr Gantz last month gave the leader an 8 June deadline to present a clear day-after plan for the conflict in Gaza.
Announcing his resignation on Sunday, Mr Gantz also called on the PM to set an election date.
Mr Netanyahu replied to Mr Gantz saying “this is not time to abandon the front”.
Gantz, a popular former military chief, joined Mr Netanyahu’s government shortly after the Hamas attack – which killed 1,200 people in southern Israel on 7 October – in a show of unity.
His presence also boosted Israel’s credibility with its international partners as he also has good working relations with US officials.
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The minister’s resignation comes a day after four Israeli hostages were rescued in an operation which the armed wing of Hamas – the militant group running Gaza – said has also killed three other hostages.
In a post on Telegram earlier on Sunday, the militant group said one of the captives killed was a US citizen.
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The rescue operation involved a devastating raid at the Nuseirat refugee camp, which claimed the lives of 274 Palestinians, Gaza’s health ministry said.
The departure of Gantz’s centrist party would not pose an immediate threat to Mr Netanyahu’s governing coalition, which
controls 64 of parliament’s 120 seats, but it could have a serious impact nonetheless.
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With Mr Gantz gone, Mr Netanyahu would lose the backing of a centrist bloc that has helped broaden support for the government in Israel and abroad, at a time of increasing diplomatic and domestic pressure eight months into the Gaza war.
Israel launched a retaliatory military campaign on Gaza on 7 October, when Hamas carried out a massacre in southern Israel which also saw 250 people taken hostage. More than 36,000 Palestinians have been killed since, according to the enclave’s Hamas-run health ministry.
The war cabinet minister’s resignation will see Mr Netanyahu having to rely more heavily on the political backing of ultra-nationalist parties, whose leaders angered Washington even before the war and who have since called for a return to a complete Israeli occupation of Gaza.
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