After masked reservist’s video threat, Gantz urges Netanyahu to denounce insubordination calls
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"

War cabinet minister Benny Gantz calls on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to denounce calls for IDF soldiers to disobey orders, following the online publication of a video showing a masked reservist calling for the defense minister’s resignation and threatening to defy orders if the government doesn’t pursue “complete victory” over Hamas.
“In the IDF, as the people’s army, soldiers from all parts of Israeli society serve, with a variety of views and beliefs – but there is only one top command rank: the chief of staff,” Gantz, one of only three voting members of Netanyahu’s war cabinet, says in a statement.
“Expressing support for the call for rebellion during wartime, or in general, as in the video published yesterday, harms Israel’s security,” the former IDF chief of staff warns, calling on Netanyahu to “clearly and unambiguously condemn the seditious video and not to hide behind a laundromat of words.”
The IDF has said has opened a criminal probe into the video, which was shared by Netanyahu’s son Yair and shows a masked reservist vowing to refuse Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s orders and asserting that soldiers will only listen to Netanyahu.
“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the video is for you. We reservist soldiers do not intend to hand the keys over to any Palestinian authority. We do not intend to give the keys to Gaza to any entity — Hamas, Fatah or any other Arab entity,” the soldier declared.
The reservist’s message comes a week-and-a-half after Gallant made a public appeal to Netanyahu in which he stated that he would not consent to Israeli civil or military governance of Gaza, and that governance by non-Hamas Palestinian entities, accompanied by international actors, is in Israel’s interest.
His appeal was rebuffed by Netanyahu, who said that he was “not prepared to switch from Hamastan to Fatahstan” — referencing the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority.
Shortly before Gantz’s statement and only minutes after Hebrew media published a quote from a senior official slamming his “deafening silence” on the matter, the Prime Minister’s Office released a statement saying that Netanyahu “has warned many times about the dangers of the phenomenon of insubordination and the permissive attitude towards it.”