Israel’s Gallant: Hawk on Lebanon but fought Netanyahu on Gaza future

In his eyes, Israel should have shifted its focus more squarely to the northern border with Lebanon, where the military launched a major campaign to stop Iran-backed Hezbollah militants from launching cross-border attacks.

While in sync with Gallant on Lebanon, Netanyahu disagreed with him on the future of Gaza, where the fired defence chief thought Israel should be looking for ways to end the war a year on from Hamas’s October 7 attack.

“Over the past few months… trust has eroded,” Netanyahu said in a statement issued by his office Tuesday.

“In light of this, I decided today to end the term of the defence minister,” he said, adding that he had appointed foreign minister Israel Katz to take his place.

It was on September 18, nearly a year into the war in Gaza, that Gallant declared that “the centre of gravity” of Israel’s military campaign was “shifting north” to Lebanon, calling it “the beginning of a new phase of the war, which requires courage, determination and perseverance”.

Days later, Israel announced ground troops had begun raids against Hezbollah inside Lebanon, after a spate of attacks that had decimated the powerful group’s leadership.

“Gallant was one of the first to support the idea that Israel needed to take the initiative in the north, just days after the October 7 attacks,” said Michael Horowitz, a geopolitical expert at the Middle East-based security consultancy Le Beck.

Calev Ben-Dor, a former analyst at Israel’s foreign ministry, said the “reasoning was that in a war, it is preferable to fight the more powerful foe first, and Hezbollah’s strength far outweighed Hamas’s”.

‘Responsible’ image

After a year of war in Gaza, according to Horowitz, Gallant was seen “rightly or wrongly, as having been prescient, betting on Israel’s ability to regain the initiative”.

A former naval commando, military adviser to late prime minister Ariel Sharon and senior military commander who led Israel’s invasion of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip in 2008-2009, Gallant established himself as a “responsible” politician, said Ben-Dor.

“He is considered to be focused on winning the war and the perceived national interest, rather than playing petty politics,” giving him credit even among Israelis “who do not necessarily share his political views”, added the former analyst.

Gallant, 65, faces accusations of war crimes over Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza, which has killed at least 43,391 people, the majority of them civilians, according to figures provided by the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The UN has described the figures as reliable.

Israel launched its campaign in Gaza in retaliation for Hamas’s October 7 attack, which resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures that include hostages killed in captivity.

In May, International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan laid out charges against Netanyahu and Gallant including war crimes, crimes against humanity and intentionally killing and starving civilians, requesting arrest warrants which have yet to be granted.

‘Unifying figure’

Gallant frequently disagreed with Netanyahu, including over controversial judicial reforms that sparked a wave of protests since early 2023 and Gaza truce negotiations.

Horowitz said that the former defence minister was long seen as a more “unifying” national figure than the abrasive prime minister and his far-right allies.

Despite spearheading his country’s war effort, Gallant was quoted in August by Israeli media as having dismissed Netanyahu’s stated war aim of “total victory” against Hamas in Gaza as “nonsense”.

Gallant, a father of three, joined Netanyahu’s Likud party in 2019, several years after entering politics with centre-right party Kulanu.