Ben Gvir demands Netanyahu fire Gallant over illegal outpost demolition

By Sam Sokol 4 June 2024, 4:55 pm

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Sam Sokol is a former political correspondent at The Times of Israel. 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"

Leader of the Otzma Yehudit party and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir leads a faction meeting at the Knesset, June 3, 2024. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir is calling on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to fire Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over the demolition of an illegal outpost in the northern West Bank.

“While Hezbollah is setting the north on fire, Defense Minister Galant has a more important task, sending a force to demolish an outpost at Yair’s farm,” Ben Gvir says in a statement.

Border Police evacuate and dismantle a makeshift structure in an illegal West Bank outpost close to the Yair’s Farm settlement in the northern West Bank, June 4, 2024. (Courtesy: Yair’s Farm)

The Defense Ministry’s Civil Administration and Border Police forces on Tuesday evacuated and demolished six makeshift structures at the outpost close to the Havat Yair outpost, which the Civil Administration says was built on private Palestinian land.

Gallant is willing to take action against settlers but “weak against Nasrallah,” Ben Gvir continues.

Last month, Ben Gvir twice called for Gallant’s ouster, once over a dispute regarding the appointment of senior IDF officers and again after Gallant challenged the government’s postwar thinking for the Gaza Strip in a televised address.