Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant left a security cabinet meeting on Saturday because his chief of staff was not allowed to attend, Israeli media reported.
Israeli Broadcasting Corporation KAN said that Gallant left the meeting and noted “increasing tension within the Security Cabinet.”
According to Israeli media, when Gallant arrived at the Kirya military base in Tel Aviv, “he was told by the Prime Minister’s office officials that Shachar Katz would not be allowed in as aides were to be excluded.”
The Times of Israel reports that according to Channel 13, however, Benjamin Netanyahu had brought five assistants with him.
The report continues that an unnamed source told the network that participants had been notified before the meeting that aides would not be allowed in, but Gallant arrived late “and apparently didn’t get the memo.”
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It meant that Gallant’s military secretary, Brigadier General Guy Markizano, would have been permitted to remain, reports the paper. But Gallant “refused to accept the situation, and walked out, taking both Katz and Markizano with him.”
“Stop getting in the way of my work,” Gallant was reportedly quoted as telling Netanyahu and another official before storming out.
According to the paper, Gallant returned an hour later, and no aides were present.
The Times of Israel states that “the incident was the latest indication of the increasingly fraught relationship” between Netanyahu and Gallant.
Last month, Netanyahu reportedly prevented Gallant from holding separate meetings with Mossad chief David Barnea or Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar, without him.
Israeli media sources have indicated ongoing disagreements concerning the continuation of the military operation in Gaza and divergent perspectives on the future of the Strip.
The Israeli occupation army acknowledged, at dawn on Sunday, the killing of a reserve officer from the engineering corps, in battles with the Palestinian Resistance in the southern Gaza Strip.
According to the latest official toll, the number of Israeli officers and soldiers killed in the ranks of the army since the beginning of the war hit 523, including 189 since the start of the ground war in Gaza.
However, the number could reportedly be much higher. On Friday, the Israeli newspaper Walla reported that 4,000 Israeli soldiers have become disabled since the beginning of the war on Gaza on October 7 and estimates suggest that the number could rise to 30,000.
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The site also said that the Israeli army “does not provide all data about the wounded to the public, for fear that it will lower people’s morale.”
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 23,968 Palestinians have been killed, and 60,582 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7. Palestinian and international estimates say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.
(PC, Anadolu)
