Analysts say the sacking of Yoav Gallant silences the loudest voice in the room calling for a ceasefire.
Protests and violence in cities across Israel met the news that the country’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had sacked Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.
Protesters in Tel Aviv were hit with water cannons as crowds blocked traffic and set fires, with similar scenes reported in Jerusalem, Haifa, Caesarea and others.
In a statement on his X account, Netanyahu referred to a “crisis of trust” with Gallant, which he said had “helped the enemy”.
In a televised news conference, Gallant minister notorious for having compared Palestinians to “human animals”-said his removal was due to three factors, none related to the issues of trust specified by the prime minister.
Gallant said he was sacked because of his wartime positions he had supported extending enlistment to religious students, his calls for an official commission of inquiry into the security failings that resulted in the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023, and due to his support for a ceasefire deal that would see the captives taken on that day returned.
Gallant spoke very well,” said Jerusalem-based pollster and former political aide Mitchell Barak. Moreover, the three issues he chose are all very popular among the public. We don’t know how this will be received in the street, but he told Al Jazeera that it could make a real difference” to the government’s future course.
“Changing the minister of defence during a war is also unprecedented and potentially dangerous,” Barak added. However, given the present focus on the US election, “the firing has lost some of the impact locally and around the world”.
