Sharp Disagreements Within Israel's War Government

Israel's Channel 12 revealed a dispute between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, over Netanyahu's barring the heads of the Mossad intelligence agency, David Barnea, and the Shin Bet internal security service, Ronen Bar, from attending a session of the war cabinet.

The channel said that Gallant told Netanyahu that preventing such meetings harms Israel's security, while Netanyahu and Gallant denied the existence of such disagreements, and confirmed that they are working together to achieve victory in the war.

On a related note, the Israeli website, Wala, reported that the mini—cabinet meeting ended following sharp disagreements between the Chief of Staff and a number of ministers regarding the formation of a team to investigate the events of October 7. This is what led Netanyahu to adjourn the meeting that was scheduled to discuss the post—war era in Gaza.

The site added that the session witnessed heated arguments and shouts, which led Netanyahu to stop it, pointing out that ministers in the small parliament attacked Chief of Staff Herzi Halevy because of the appointment of Shaul Mofaz, who supervised the implementation of the unilateral withdrawal plan from Gaza in 2005, to head the investigation team.

"Nearly three months after the events, Israel's Chief of Staff Halevy decided to form a security team to begin an investigation into the failures of the October 7 events in terms of security, military and intelligence aspects."

Investigation Members
Former Minister of Security and Army Chief of Staff Shaul Mofaz will head the team. Former Military Intelligence Division Chief Zeev Farkash and former Southern Army Command chief Sami Targman will head the investigation.

Israeli media said the investigation would also cover the conduct of military operations during the war on Gaza.

The Israeli Defense Minister had revealed Israel's plans for the next stage of its war on Gaza, stating that it intends to adopt a new, more targeted approach in the northern part of the Strip, and to pursue continually the leadership of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in the south.

In a statement, Gallant said that after the war, Hamas will not return to control Gaza, which is "scheduled to be run by Palestinian bodies as long as there is no threat to Israel," as he put it. He added that Israel will retain freedom of operations, but that there will be no Israeli civilian presence, as he put it.

Israeli reports said that Washington asked Israel to start implementing the third phase this week, while the occupation army announced during the last two days a reduction in the number of its forces in Gaza, but did not officially agree to start implementing this phase.

According to sources, the third stage requires the Israeli army to move from intensive bombing to targeted bombing and to withdraw troops from Gaza to the borders between the two sides (Gaza Strip areas).

Source: Israeli press