{"id":53754,"date":"2024-05-18T22:47:08","date_gmt":"2024-05-18T22:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/05\/18\/israels-wartime-government-frays-as-frustration-with-netanyahu-grows\/"},"modified":"2024-05-18T22:47:08","modified_gmt":"2024-05-18T22:47:08","slug":"israels-wartime-government-frays-as-frustration-with-netanyahu-grows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/05\/18\/israels-wartime-government-frays-as-frustration-with-netanyahu-grows\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel\u2019s Wartime Government Frays as Frustration with Netanyahu Grows"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1050\" height=\"550\" src=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/05\/18\/multimedia\/18mideast-ledeall-photo1-SUB-jzcm\/18mideast-ledeall-photo1-SUB-jzcm-facebookJumbo.jpg?fit=1050,550&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Israel\u2019s Wartime Government Frays as Frustration with Netanyahu Grows\" title=\"Israel\u2019s Wartime Government Frays as Frustration with Netanyahu Grows\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Benny Gantz, a centrist member of Israel\u2019s war cabinet, presented Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with an ultimatum on Saturday, saying he would leave the government if it did not soon develop a plan for the future of the war in Gaza.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">While Mr. Gantz\u2019s departure would not topple the country\u2019s emergency wartime government, the move would further strain a fragile coalition that has provided Mr. Netanyahu\u2019s far-right government with a boost of international legitimacy, and it would make the prime minister even more reliant on his hard-line partners.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIf you choose the path of zealots, dragging the country into the abyss, we will be forced to leave the government,\u201d Mr. Gantz said in a televised news conference. \u201cWe will turn to the people and build a government that will earn the people\u2019s trust.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Gantz, who leads the National Unity party, said he would give Mr. Netanyahu until June 8 \u2014 three weeks\u2019 time \u2014 to develop a plan that would aim to secure the release of hostages taken to Gaza by Hamas-led militants on Oct. 7, address the future governance of the territory, return displaced Israelis to their homes and advance normalization with Saudi Arabia, among other issues.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Gantz\u2019s ultimatum was the latest sign of pressure building on Mr. Netanyahu to develop a postwar plan. The prime minister is increasingly being squeezed \u2014 externally from Israel\u2019s closest ally, the United States, and from within his own War Cabinet \u2014 to clarify a strategy for Gaza. Just days earlier, Yoav Gallant, Israel\u2019s defense minister, said the government was charting \u201ca dangerous course\u201d and demanded that Mr. Netanyahu immediately pledge not to establish an Israeli military government in Gaza.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In a response to Mr. Gantz\u2019s ultimatum, Mr. Netanyahu accused the former military chief of staff and a longtime political rival of calling for \u201cIsraeli defeat\u201d by effectively allowing Hamas to remain in power.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Gantz, he added, was \u201cchoosing to place ultimatums for the prime minister, rather than for Hamas.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Domestic frustration is also mounting over Mr. Netanyahu\u2019s failure to secure the freedom of the hostages remaining in Gaza. Israeli forces on Saturday recovered the body of an Israeli man held in Gaza since Oct. 7, the fourth body recovered in two days, raising fears about the fates of roughly 128 captives still in the enclave.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Even as Israeli politicians wrestled with how to finish the war, the effects of the current strategy were playing out in Gaza.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Israeli ground forces pressed onward in the eastern outskirts of the city of Rafah on Saturday, the Israeli military said. In a statement on Saturday morning, Hamas said its fighters had fired on Israeli troops in eastern Rafah, as well as close to the Rafah border crossing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">As the war enters its eighth month, more than 34,000 people have died in Gaza, according to the health authorities there, but the Israeli military has otherwise made slow progress in reaching the government\u2019s stated goals of dismantling Hamas and freeing the hostages.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Negotiations over a cease-fire that would release a number of hostages have stalled, with Israel and Hamas at odds over the conditions for a truce. Israeli troops have also had to return to parts of northern Gaza to combat a renewed Hamas insurgency. And Israeli forces and Hezbollah, the politically powerful Lebanese armed group, continue to bombard one another across the border, leaving tens of thousands of Israelis displaced with little idea when they might return home.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Gantz joined the Israeli government after Oct. 7 as an emergency wartime measure. The result has been a fragile and fractious coalition, with Mr. Gantz and his allies trading fire with Mr. Netanyahu\u2019s far-right allies and occasionally the prime minister himself.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">To some extent, both Mr. Gallant\u2019s and Mr. Gantz\u2019s criticisms echoed those of U.S. officials. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said this week that Israel had to produce a \u201cclear, concrete plan\u201d for postwar governance in Gaza.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The United States has sought to empower the Palestinian Authority, the group that controls much of the occupied West Bank, to govern Gaza. But Mr. Netanyahu and his allies have rejected that idea, proposing that Palestinians unaffiliated with Hamas or the P.A. take over.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The Biden administration has also called for the establishment of a Palestinian state \u2014 of which Gaza would be an integral part \u2014 a proposal that has lost support in Israel since the Hamas led terrorist attack on Oct. 7.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">On Saturday, Mr. Gantz vowed not to \u201callow any party, whether friends or enemies, to impose a Palestinian state upon us,\u201d echoing Mr. Netanyahu\u2019s rhetoric opposing Palestinian sovereignty.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Until a permanent solution is found, Mr. Gantz said, Gaza should be temporarily run by an \u201cAmerican-European-Arab-Palestinian\u201d civil administration, with Israeli security oversight. Mr. Gantz joined Mr. Netanyahu in dismissing any role for the internationally backed P.A.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The discovery of dead hostages and a resurgence of Hamas fighting in recent days has highlighted the failures of Mr. Netanyahu\u2019s current strategy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Israeli forces said on Saturday they had recovered the body of Ron Binyamin, 53, an Israeli man and the fourth hostage brought back to Israel for burial over the past two days.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Around 124 of the more than 250 people taken hostage on Oct. 7 are still in Gaza, according to the Israeli authorities. Another four captives have been held there for years, since well before the Hamas attack. At least 35 of the remaining hostages are presumed dead, according to Israeli government statistics.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">As fighting in Gaza has intensified near the southern city of Rafah, the flow of aid to the enclave has dwindled. Trucks laden with humanitarian aid began rolling onto the shores of Gaza this week through a temporary pier built by the United States.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But American officials and aid groups emphasized that the new sea corridor could not replace land border crossings, the most efficient way of getting supplies to the territory\u2019s civilians. Only 310 aid trucks have entered Gaza through those crossings in the 10 days since <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/05\/07\/world\/middleeast\/israeli-rafah-gaza-ceasefire.html\" title=\"\">Israel began its military incursion<\/a> in the southern city of Rafah, United Nations officials said on Friday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">That is far shy of the more than 500 a day that aid organizations say is needed to maintain even minimally acceptable living conditions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Humanitarian workers have repeatedly warned that famine is looming amid severe shortages of basic goods among civilians, many of whom have been displaced multiple times. More than 800,000 Palestinians have been forced to flee Rafah since Israel began a military offensive on May 6, according to UNRWA, the primary U.N. agency for Palestinians.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Israel continues to characterize its offensive in and around Rafah as a \u201climited operation\u201d against Hamas. But recent <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/05\/16\/world\/middleeast\/rafah-israel-offensive-images.html\" title=\"\">satellite imagery<\/a> showed widening destruction and suggested that a significant incursion was already underway. On Thursday, Israel said it would send more forces to Rafah, signaling that it intended to attack deeper into the city despite international concerns about the threat to civilians posed by a full-scale invasion.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Rafah had become home to more than one million Palestinians who fled their homes elsewhere in Gaza seeking a modicum of safety, even as the Israeli military continued to carry out airstrikes on the city. It was one of the last places that had not been invaded by Israeli soldiers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Now, many Palestinians are seeking shelter in places like the central city of Deir al Balah and Al-Mawasi, a coastal area west of Khan Younis. Both are overcrowded and facing dire conditions, U.N. and aid groups have said. In the north, Israeli attacks and new military evacuation orders have displaced more than 160,000 people from several areas around Gaza City, according to UNRWA.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mohammed al-Lahham and his family fled Rafah last week and returned to Khan Younis, their hometown in Gaza and a city scarred by Israeli bombardment. They hoped they would not be forced to flee again.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThe situation here in my city is unbearable, but at least it is better than living in a tent,\u201d said Mr. al-Lahham, 41, a plumber and father of five. \u201cI am finally back in Khan Younis, my hometown, where I know its people and places and streets.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The dearth of aid has forced families like the al-Lahhams to fend almost entirely for themselves.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">On Thursday, Mr. al-Lahham stood in line with two of his sons to fill cans with water from a large tank brought in by a charity. And while the water that day was free, nothing else in the battered city was, with prices in the markets jumping, amid shortages of food and limited commercial goods.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-798hid etfikam0\">Raja Abdulrahim<!-- -->, <!-- -->Bilal Shbair<!-- -->and <!-- -->Victoria Kim<!-- --> contributed reporting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/05\/18\/world\/middleeast\/israel-gaza-war-netanyahu-gantz.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Benny Gantz, a centrist member of Israel\u2019s war cabinet, presented Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with an ultimatum on Saturday, saying he would leave the government if it did not soon develop a plan for the future of the war in Gaza. While Mr. Gantz\u2019s departure would not topple the country\u2019s emergency wartime government, the move [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53755,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/05\/18\/multimedia\/18mideast-ledeall-photo1-SUB-jzcm\/18mideast-ledeall-photo1-SUB-jzcm-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[53354,17649,3954,7850,5558,4758,26094],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53754"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53754"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53754\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53756,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53754\/revisions\/53756"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}