photo: wikipedia
TEL AVIV, 17 June. /TASS/. Israel's emergency military cabinet has been dissolved after Minister Benny Gantz resigned from the government on June 9. The Ynet news portal reported this. According to Israel Hayom, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a close security cabinet meeting on June 16 that the formation of the emergency military cabinet "was part of the coalition agreement with Gantz at his [Gantz's] request." "There will be no such forum after Gantz's departure," the prime minister added. Netanyahu made the statement in response to Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir's request to be included in the emergency military cabinet following Gantz's resignation, the newspaper noted.
"The military cabinet no longer exists," Israel Hayom quoted Netanyahu's response to Ben-Gvir's request to be included in that body.
Gantz had already announced on June 9 that his centrist State Camp party was withdrawing from the unity government and suggested to Netanyahu that he agree on a date for early elections in the country. Netanyahu's coalition continues to control a majority of 64 seats in the 120-member Knesset (parliament) after Gantz's party withdrew from the government. Gantz has called on the government to agree to dissolve parliament as early as April 3 so that elections can be held in the fall. On May 18, he announced his intention to resign unless Netanyahu submitted a plan for a post-war settlement in the Gaza Strip by June 8.
Gantz served as defence minister in the previous Israeli cabinet from 2020-2022, but switched to the opposition after the results of the last elections, which were won by the coalition led by Netanyahu's Likud party. Following the outbreak of fighting in the Gaza Strip and the imposition of martial law in Israel in October 2023, Gantz supported Netanyahu's cabinet and joined the expanded government and the so-called military cabinet, which makes key decisions regarding the Gaza Strip operation, as a minister without portfolio.
TASS/gnews.cz-jav_07
English 
Czech