Ben Gvir hits back at Gallant with call to probe whether defense minister had advance notice of Oct. 7

Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir dismisses allegations that he ordered police not to stop a mob of right-wing protesters from overrunning two IDF bases yesterday and calls on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to probe, and then fire, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant instead.

Writing to Netanyahu, Ben Gvir calls Gallant’s concerns over his conduct “baseless” and demands that the premier look into whether the defense minister had advance warning of Hamas’s October 7 attack and intentionally refrained from bolstering the IDF’s presence on the Gaza border.

The alleged misdeeds on the part of the defense minister that Ben Gvir says require investigation are: conducting an independent defense policy, supporting protesters against the government’s judicial overhaul who refused to serve in the IDF reserves, and approving demolitions of Israeli construction in the West Bank to satisfy foreign interests.

Ben Gvir further demands to know if Gallant knew in advance that Military Police would arrive at the Sde Teiman base in southern Israel yesterday to arrest soldiers — and accuses him of working with “opposition elements” to bring down the government.

Ben Gvir’s letter comes in response to one sent to Netanyahu by Gallant, in which the defense minister calls on the prime minister “to act with a heavy hand against the coalition members who took part in the unrest and order an investigation to examine if the minister of national security prevented or delayed the police from responding to the violent incidents that members of his party took part in.”

After Military Police arrested nine soldiers suspected of mistreating a prisoner, members of Ben Gvir’s far-right Otzma Yehudit party set out to Sde Teiman, where politicians and activists broke in and demonstrated. Protesters and MKs later stormed the Beit Lid base where the suspects are being held.