Gallant said to lose temper as Netanyahu calls vote to keep IDF on Gaza-Egypt border, fume: PM ‘can decide to kill all of the hostages’

The latest spat in a series of bitter disagreements between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over Israel’s strategy in Gaza erupted during a security cabinet meeting last night, several Hebrew media outlets report.

The argument is reported to have broken out when Netanyahu announced that, unbeknownst to Gallant, he had decided to bring the issue of IDF deployment along the Philadelphi Corridor on the Gaza-Egypt border to a vote.

The top panel of ministers was asked to approve a series of maps drawn up by the IDF which show how Israel plans to keep its troops deployed in the nine-mile narrow stretch known as the Philadelphi Corridor.

The cabinet voted eight to one, with one abstention, to back Netanyahu’s position in favor of maintaining Israeli military presence along the Gaza-Egypt border as part of any potential ceasefire and hostage release deal. Gallant was the sole opponent. (Itamar Ben Gvir abstained in protest at a potential dilution of the IDF presence at the border.) The vote was all but symbolic since the maps had already been submitted to Hamas and to mediators Egypt and the US.

Citing senior cabinet members who were present in the meeting, Ynet reports that Gallant lost his temper, and accused Netanyahu of “forcing the maps onto the IDF” despite the defense establishment urging him to be more flexible.

“The prime minister can make all the decisions, and he can also decide to kill all of the hostages,” Gallant is reported to have fumed, according to Ynet, Yisrael Hayom and Channel 12 news.

Kan news, similarly, quoted Gallant saying, “The prime minister can bring any decision he wants to the cabinet [for approval], including a vote to kill the hostages.”

The unnamed cabinet ministers tell Ynet that unlike in previous instances, nobody jumped to Gallant’s defense, believing he had gone too far in his criticism.

Kan news reported that one of the ministers asked, “How can you speak like this to the prime minister?”

“This was the harshest clash I can recall between Netanyahu and Gallant,” one of the ministers tells Ynet. “Netanyahu isolated Gallant completely. In situations such as these, a defense minister may as well lay down his keys.״