Benjamin Netanyahu Dissolves War Cabinet

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is dissolving his country’s six-member war cabinet. The decision follows the departure of two key members of the group at a critical moment for Israel. Its military is fully engaged in a war with Hamas in Gaza, and in the north we’ve told you about those tensions that are escalating along the border with Lebanon as the military exchanges attacks with the Iranian-backed militant group, Hezbollah. And there are growing tensions within the Israeli government. Prime Minister Netanyahu is condemning his military’s decision to enact daily tactical pauses in Gaza to allow humanitarian aid into the enclave. For more on this, let’s bring in Jon Donnison with our partners at the BBC. So Jon, what are we learning about Netanyahu’s decision to dissolve the war cabinet?

Well, you have to remember that this war cabinet was set up as an act of unity in the days after the October the 7th Hamas attack. Well, that political unity in Israel has now gone. Prime Minister Netanyahu is being squeezed from the center and from the far right. So last weekend, as you say, we had the opposition figure, Benny Gantz and his ally Gadi Eisenhot quitting the war cabinet. Now that removed two relatively moderate voices, and crucially, two people with vast military experience, and people who I think the Americans were happy to talk to. They thought they could do business with those two men. Well, they have now left, and instead you had the hard line right-wing interior minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, demanding a place on the war cabinet. Well, Mr. Netanyahu said, no, he’s not going to do that. He’s disbanded the group altogether. And I think it means basically that there will be more decision-making in the hands of Mr. Netanyahu and a small group of ministers and allies. But increasingly, he looks very much an isolated figure politically.

So how is this expected to impact the way Israel navigates the situation in Gaza? And again, as we mentioned, those escalating tensions in the north with Lebanon?

I don’t think the dissolving of the war cabinet will make too much difference, to be honest. It’s Mr. Netanyahu who is calling the shots both in Gaza and in terms of Israel’s response to what’s happening on the border with Lebanon and Hezbollah. We had a large number of rockets being fired out from Hezbollah at the tail end of last week and over the weekend. That was in response to Israel assassinating a senior Hezbollah commander in Lebanon last week. Today my colleagues have been up to the border area today and they said it was a little bit quieter, although there obviously is great concern from the people who’ve been living there, many of whom who’ve had to evacuate their homes now for months. And there are always fears that Israel could end up fighting a war on another front, and that would be a conflict, which could be potentially much more serious. Hezbollah is a much more powerful force than Hamas, and it could pull in other players in the region.

So as we mentioned, Prime Minister Netanyahu denouncing his military’s decision to implement a daytime tactical pause in Gaza to allow in aid. What more can you tell us about the decision and what does this suggest about, really, if there’s a power struggle in Israel?

Well, there’s not only political discord, but Benjamin Netanyahu has discord with the military too, because this decision was made by the IDF yesterday morning, and they said they were going to announce a daily tactical pause every day between the hours of eight o’clock in the morning and seven o’clock at night. And this would be on a specific road that heads in from the Kerem Shalom crossing, which is right in the south of Gaza on the border with Israel. And that on this stretch of road about eight kilometers long, there will be this tactical pause in fighting. But Mr. Netanyahu has called that decision made by the military unacceptable. However, the military today when asked, they said it had come from the political echelons, so we don’t really know. But it’s… Mr. Netanyahu is running the country, but his military seemed to be not entirely in agreement over the best policy in all aspects of coverage in Gaza.

Okay. Jon Donnison, thank you.