Gantz quits war government, says PM preventing ‘true victory’ over Hamas, urges elections

Accusing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of preventing Israel from achieving “true victory” in its war against Hamas, National Unity chairman Benny Gantz announced his party’s long-anticipated withdrawal from the government on Sunday evening, weeks after conditioning his continued support on the prime minister’s acceptance of an agreed-upon vision for the Gaza conflict by June 8.

“After October 7, just like hundreds of thousands of patriotic Israelis, my colleagues and I mobilized as well” and joined the coalition, “even though we knew it was a bad government,” said Gantz, one of three voting members of Netanyahu’s war cabinet.

The centrist National Unity party joined the emergency government days after October 7, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists stormed into southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 251 hostages into the Gaza Strip, sparking the ongoing war in the enclave.