GNITN - Special Edition

Israel At War – Day 247

Gantz Is Gone

Gantz Leaves

He did it a day later than he planned to, but war cabinet member Benny Gantz went through with his threat to exit the government as we read in a report from The Jerusalem Post:

Minister-without-portfolio Benny Gantz resigned Sunday from the emergency government, in a move which doesn’t collapse the coalition but which leaves Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu more dependent on his far-right partners.

It’s a strange move considering that now the very parties they accuse the PM of giving into now have more sway that ever. Gantz went into more details on why he resigned:

"Netanyahu is preventing us from moving forward to a real victory," said Gantz in a press conference designed for the prime-time news hour. "And so today we are leaving the emergency government with a heavy heart, but with our whole heart."

"Fateful, strategic decisions are met with hesitance and procrastination due to political considerations," said Gantz, criticizing the current government's recent behavior.

Gantz called for elections to be held in the fall, urging Netanyahu to set an agreed-on date for them to occur.

He went on to talk like he will eventually lead the fighting when he wins the elections he’s calling for:

The departure of his National Unity party, which had entered the government at the start of the war purely due to the emergency nature of the government, is set to impact the small war cabinet of which he and the number two in his party, former IDF Chief-of-Staff Gadi Eisenkot were members.

The war will continue for years, said Gantz, telling Israelis that he "will not promise you a quick and easy victory. You deserve more than empty promises. But Israel should and must achieve real victory."

As I previously mentioned, Netanyahu needs to keep the very people Gantz says is the reason for some of the stalemates in the government:

Their departure comes as Netanyahu has given a nod to a three-phase hostage deal, which Gatnz supports but which coalition factions Otzma Yehudit and the Religious Zionist Party oppose.

Otzma Yehudit and the Religious Zionist Party make up 14 of the 64 seats that still make up the coalition.

Gantz seems to want things both ways as he urged the PM to support the current deal yet the deal would leave Hamas in power longer:

Gantz expressed his support for the hostage deal presented by US President Joe Biden, while urging Netanyahu to stand behind it. I "demand that the prime minister show the necessary courage to stand behind it and do everything to move it forward," he said.

He took the blame for not getting those still held captive out:

In an apology to the families of the hostages, Gantz said, "We did a lot - but we failed the test. We have not managed to bring many of the hostages home. The responsibility is mine as well."

Still Making Demands

Gantz immediately called for a committee to look into why the October 7th attack occurred:

There should also be the formation of a national probe to "examine the failures from within and protect from hypocritical attacks from without,” he stressed.

He also appeared to try and turn the Israel Defense Minister against Netanyahu saying this:

Gantz praised Defense Minister Gallant, calling him a brave and determined leader, and telling him that now is the time not only to say what is right, but "to do what is right."

There is still bad blood between Gallant and Netanyahu since before the attacks. The PM called for unity, not division now:

Netanyahu responded to the announcement, saying, "Israel is in an existential war on several fronts. Benny now is not the time to abandon the fight; it is the time to combine powers."

Netanyahu then appeared to move on from Gantz leaving:

"Citizens of Israel, we will keep fighting until victory and until the achievement of all of the goals of the war, first of which is to free all of our hostages and to eliminate Hamas," he added.

"My door will stay open to any Zionist party that is willing to share the burden and help bring victory over our enemies and ensure the safety of our citizens."

Gantz’s 2nd in command in the party also resigned via a letter:

Eisenkot addressed Netanyahu in his resignation letter, which was submitted Sunday. "Despite my many efforts, alongside my colleagues, the cabinet led by you has for a while avoided making real decisions that are needed to achieve the goals of the war and improve Israel's strategic stance," he said.

The far right, who now want to join the war cabinet also weighed in:

National Security Minister Otzma Yehudit head Itamar Ben Gvir immediately demanded to be added to the war cabinet. "It is time to make brave decisions, to get real deterrence, and to bring security to the South, the North, and all of Israel," he said.

Ben Gvir wants Israel to take the gloves off and get the war over now. Smotrich thinks that Gantz did the wrong thing:

Finance Minister and Religious Zionist Party leader Bezalel Smotrich criticized the move, saying that the move was wrong in the midst of the war.

"Benny, when you began to share the burden eight months ago, you did a brave and correct thing," he said. "Understanding the importance, despite differences, I agreed to move aside and be left out of managing the war, and since then, I have backed up a number of decisions that I really do not agree with. Simply because unity is vital to victory," he added.

Smotrich went on to call on all Zionist party heads to join a unity government "until victory."

Those to the left of Gantz also chimed in:

Opposition leader Yair Lapid praised the decision, saying, "Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot’s decision to leave the government is both justified and important."

"It’s time to replace this extremist and failing government with a government that will restore security for the people of Israel, bring the hostages home, rebuild the economy, and restore Israel’s international standing," he added.

As a reminder, here were the things Gantz wanted to see happen:

Gantz had announced on May 18 that his party would leave the government on June 8 if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not adopt six objectives: Returning the hostages; demolishing Hamas and demilitarizing the Gaza Strip; providing a governing alternative in the Strip: returning residents of the North to their homes by September 1 and rehabilitating the western Negev; promoting normalization with Saudi Arabia; and adopting an outline for standardized national service in which all Israelis serve the country.

Gantz wasn’t the only one from his party to make demands, too:

Members of Gantz's took steps last week in opposition to the government. MK Orit Farkash Hacohen put forward a bill to form a National Committee of Inquiry on the events leading up to, during, and after October 7. In addition, MK Pnina Tamano-Shata put forward a bill to disperse the Knesset, which would lead to an election.

A Little Irony

We read in an article from The Times Of Israel that local Hamas supporters are upset that the IDF took a page out of Hamas’ playbook to get the hostages out:

Some of the Israeli special forces that entered the Nuseirat camp in Gaza on Saturday to conduct a large-scale operation to free four hostages posed as displaced Gazans or as Hamas fighters, according to eyewitnesses quoted in Arab media outlets.

The Saudi-owned Asharq news channel quoted local residents saying that a special forces unit, including women, entered the camp in disguise, driving in a white car loaded with mattresses. They said the women were dressed in clothes “that women are wearing here in the war.”

The report gave more details on how the IDF got in and close to the hostages:

According to the report, the special forces introduced themselves to local residents as Palestinians escaping the Israel Defense Forces operation in Rafah, and said they had rented a place in the area around the market in Nuseirat, while pointing at the building where hostage Noa Argamani was being held. The three male hostages who were also rescued in the operation — Andrey Kozlov, Shlomi Ziv and Almog Meir Jan — were being detained in another building 200 meters away.

The IDF disguised themselves as Hamas soldiers to throw off those holding the prisoners:

In a separate report, a resident of the Nuseirat camp told the Saudi news network Al-Arabiya that he saw men storming into his neighbor’s house wearing Hamas military uniforms, helmets and badges, and thought initially that they were Hamas operatives, but later realized they were members of an IDF special unit.

The man recounted that there was an “insane exchange of fire” and that planes fired at the building of his neighbor, Ahmed Aljamal, “from every direction.”

One of the ironic parts is that complaining about using subterfuge to get the hostages out misses the subterfuge of using civilian homes and supposedly neutral journalists to house the hostages:

A tweet on the same incident by Ramy Abdu, head of the Hamas-affiliated Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, claimed that the IDF used a ladder to enter Aljamal’s home.

The same tweet described Ahmed’s son Abdallah Aljamal as a journalist and a spokesman for the Hamas-run labor ministry in Gaza.

The IDF confirmed on Sunday that Abdallah Aljamal was holding hostages Meir Jan, Kozlov and Ziv in his home alongside his family.

Abdallah Aljamal wrote one column for Al Jazeera in 2019, prompting rumors that he was a Gazan correspondent for the Qatari news outlet who had been detaining a hostage in his home — an unsubstantiated claim that the network stridently denied on Sunday.

Hamas health authorities initially reported at least 50 Palestinians were killed. Hamas’s health ministry updated the toll to 274 on Sunday. The figure cannot be independently verified and does not distinguish between civilians and Hamas combatants.

It was not an easy fight

IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said the hostages were rescued by special forces while “under fire.”

He said the hostages were held in the homes of Hamas-affiliated families, who were paid by Hamas.

These “civilians” are not innocent in any sense of the word. And I doubt the figures they are putting out are bogus as well. Any real journalist could figure that out if they actually wanted to.