JERUSALEM: Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, a former general who has shaped Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, is a prominent force behind the expansion of the nearly year-long military campaign into Lebanon.
The hawkish politician, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s party who at times clashed with him over policy issues, has repeatedly stressed that Israel must take the fight to Lebanon, where Iran-backed Hezbollah militants have launched cross-border attacks after Palestinian ally Hamas’s October 7 attack.
The near-daily exchanges of fire since early October 2023 have displaced an estimated 60,000 people on the Israeli side, and officials like Gallant have called to push the Lebanese militant group away from the border to allow their safe return.
Military action was “the only way to ensure the return of communities in northern Israel to their homes,” Gallant told visiting US envoy Amos Hochstein last month.
And on September 18, the Israeli minister declared that “the center of gravity” of Israel’s military campaign was “shifting north,” calling it “the beginning of a new phase of the war, which requires courage, determination and perseverance.”
This week Israel announced its ground troops had begun raids against Hezbollah inside Lebanon, after a spate of attacks that had decimated the powerful group’s leadership.
“Gallant was one of the first to support the idea that Israel needed to take the initiative in the north, just days after the October 7 attacks,” said Michael Horowitz, a geopolitical expert at the Middle East-based security consultancy Le Beck.
Calev Ben-Dor, a former analyst at Israel’s foreign ministry, said the “reasoning was that in a war, it is preferable to fight the more powerful foe first, and Hezbollah’s strength far outweighed Hamas’s.”
Now, according to Horowitz, Gallant is seen “rightly or wrongly, as having been prescient, betting on Israel’s ability to regain the initiative.”
A former naval commando, military adviser to late prime minister Ariel Sharon and senior military commander who led Israel’s invasion of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip in 2008-2009, Gallant has established himself as a “responsible” politician, said Ben-Dor.
“He is considered to be focused on winning the war and the perceived national interest, rather than playing petty politics,” giving him credit even among Israelis “who do not necessarily share his political views,” added the former analyst.
Gallant, 65, faces accusations of war crimes over Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza, which has killed at least 41,788 people, the majority of them civilians, according to figures provided by the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The UN has described the figures as reliable.
Israel had launched its campaign in retaliation for Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack, which resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures that include hostages killed in captivity.
In May, International Criminal Court prosector Karim Khan laid out charges against Netanyahu and Gallant including war crimes, crimes against humanity and intentionally killing and starving civilians, requesting arrest warrants which have yet to be granted.
Gallant has frequently disagreed with Netanyahu, including over controversial judicial reforms that sparked a wave of protests since early 2023 and Gaza truce negotiations.
Horowitz said that the defense minister, who has survived at least one attempt to sack him, is seen as a more “unifying” national figure than the abrasive prime minister and his far-right allies.
Gallant, a father of three, joined Netanyahu’s Likud party in 2019, several years after entering politics with center-right party Kulanu.
Horowitz said that Gallant believes he had been denied a crushing victory against Hamas during the 2008-2009 Gaza war, when he served as the military’s Southern Command chief.
“This has contributed to his image as a strong military leader, who in retrospect was right, especially after the October 7 attacks.”
But during the current war, Gallant was quoted in August by Israeli media as having dismissed Netanyahu’s stated war aim of “total victory” against Hamas in Gaza as “nonsense.”
Israel’s hawkish Yoav Gallant driving war in Lebanon
https://arab.news/26m65
Israel’s hawkish Yoav Gallant driving war in Lebanon
- The hawkish politician has repeatedly stressed that Israel must take the fight to Lebanon
- The near-daily exchanges of fire since early October 2023 have displaced an estimated 60,000 people on the Israeli side
UN chief visits Iraq to mark end of assistance mission set up after 2003 invasion
- Sudani said his country “highly values” the mission’s work in a region “that has suffered for decades from dictatorship, wars, and terrorism”
- Guterres praised “the courage, fortitude and determination of the Iraqi people”
BAGHDAD: United National Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was in Baghdad on Saturday to mark the end of the political mission set up in 2003 following the US-led invasion of Iraq that toppled Saddam Hussein.
The UN Security Council, at Iraq’s request, voted last year to wind down the mandate of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI), by the end of 2025. The mission was set up to coordinate post-conflict humanitarian and reconstruction efforts and help restore a representative government in the country.
Iraqi caretaker Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani said his country “highly values” the mission’s work in a region “that has suffered for decades from dictatorship, wars, and terrorism.” He said its conclusion showed Iraq had reached a stage of “full self-reliance.”
“Iraq emerged victorious thanks to the sacrifices and courage of its people,” he said in a joint statement with Guterres.
The ending of UNAMI’s mandate “does not signify the end of the partnership between Iraq and the UN,” Sudani said, adding that it represents the beginning of a new chapter of cooperation focused on development and inclusive economic growth.
The prime minister said a street in Baghdad would be named “United Nations Street” in honor of the UN’s work and in recognition of 22 UN staff who were killed in an Aug. 19, 2003, truck bomb attack on the Canal Hotel in Baghdad, which housed the UN headquarters.
Guterres praised “the courage, fortitude and determination of the Iraqi people” and the country’s efforts to restore security and order after years of sectarian violence and the rise of extremist groups, including the Daesh group, in the years after the 2003 invasion.
“Iraqis have worked to overcome decades of violence, oppression, war, terrorism, sectarianism and foreign interference,” the secretary-general said. “And today’s Iraq is unrecognizable from those times.”
Iraq “is now a normal country, and relations between the UN and Iraq will become normal relations with the end of UNAMI,” Guterres added. He also expressed appreciation for Iraq’s commitment to returning its citizens from the Al-Hol camp, a sprawling tent camp in northeastern Syria housing thousands of people — mostly women and children — with alleged ties to the IS.
Guterres recently recommended former Iraqi President Barham Salih to become the next head of the UN refugee agency, the first nomination from the Middle East in half a century.
Salih’s presidential term, from 2018 to 2022, came in the immediate aftermath of the Daesh group’s rampage across Iraq and the battle to take back the territory seized by the extremist group, including the key northern city of Mosul.
At least 2.2 million Iraqis were displaced as they fled the IS offensive. Many, particularly members of the Yazidi minority from the northern Sinjar district, remain in displacement camps today.
