Benny Gantz says will join an emergency unity government if given ‘real influence’
National Unity party leader Benny Gantz announced in a broadcast this evening that he is willing to join an emergency unity government to oversee the war effort to completion if his party is “given the real opportunity to influence and participate in the management of the war.”
Gantz said he spoke with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday and told him he is willing to join the government “with the intention of establishing a war cabinet that will direct the battlefront against Gaza and other fronts.”
“At this time, when the best of our sons and daughters are enlisting in the reserves, when we are eulogizing hundreds of dead, when we are all praying for the well-being of thousands of wounded, kidnapped and missing, we must take responsibility and enlist as leaders as well,” he said.
Gantz previously served as IDF chief of staff, and later as defense minister in a previous government.
He joined Netanyahu in a coalition in May 2020 to help manage the COVID-19 crisis but was prevented from becoming prime minister himself, under the rotation agreement, when Netanyahu deliberately collapsed the government to force new elections.
The All Israel News Staff is a team of journalists in Israel.