Israel's Netanyahu and Gallant, locked together in a divided government

By James Mackenzie

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A showdown between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant over the Gaza war is the latest in a series of confrontations that have tested the notion of cabinet unity to breaking point over the past 18 months.

Netanyahu said on Monday the two could work together "as long as there is trust", but that all ministers were beholden to cabinet decisions. "And that is the main thing that is now being tested," he told a press conference.

He dismissed calls by Gallant and others in the security establishment to accept a withdrawal of Israeli troops from the southern border area of the Gaza Strip as the price of a ceasefire deal with Islamist militant group Hamas.

Arguments have broken out repeatedly between Netanyahu and Gallant, who rose to the rank of general during a 35-year military career that he began in a naval commando unit.

While hawkish on security matters, including Hamas, he has been openly scornful of Netanyahu's often repeated aim of "total victory" in Gaza, which he has dismissed as "nonsense".

But the twisted geometry of Israeli politics since the Gaza war began has kept the two locked together, preventing Netanyahu from firing Gallant and stopping Gallant walking out.

Last year, during protests over a drive by Netanyahu to curb the Supreme Court's powers, Gallant broke ranks and spoke out against a plan which he said was causing such deep social divisions that it endangered national security.

Netanyahu sacked him, but backtracked when Israelis took to the streets in one of the largest demonstrations in the country's history. Gallant, who has been in politics for a decade, refuses to leave.

"He thinks the role of his life is what he's doing now, as minister of defence in what he thinks is the most crucial war since the war of Independence," said Gayil Talshir, a specialist in Israeli politics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, using a term often used in Israel for the Arab-Israeli war of 1948.

"There's no chance he's going to leave."

The standoff is partly due to the structure of the right-wing coalition which was built by Netanyahu after a 2022 election and depends on two nationalist religious parties led by the hardline ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir.

Without their support, the government would fall, leaving them free to voice their hostility to Gallant and others in the defence establishment whom they consider too soft on the Palestinians, particularly on Hamas.

As a measure of the ill-feeling in the cabinet, at his press conference on Monday Netanyahu showed what he said was a policy note from a Hamas commander found by Israeli troops in Gaza.

One of the points read: "Apply psychological pressure on Gallant".

RESPONSIBILITY

The latest infighting follows the recovery of the bodies of six Israeli hostages shot dead in a tunnel in southern Gaza hours before they were found by Israeli troops.

The discovery triggered mass demonstrations demanding a hostage deal, something Gallant has also called for. He said that while it was too late for the hostages found in the tunnel, the others still in captivity must be returned home.

Like Netanyahu, Gallant's career has been scarred by the events of Oct. 7, when Hamas-led gunmen killed about 1,200 Israelis and foreigners, and seized 253 hostages in an attack on communities around Gaza.

Two days later, Gallant said the price Gaza would pay @will change reality for generations" and that Israel was imposing a total blockade, with a ban on food and fuel imports. He described Israel's enemies as "human animals".

Since then, he has appeared more cautious than Netanyahu, urging him to produce a plan for running Gaza after the war and rejecting any suggestion the Israeli army could remain as an occupying power.

With Israeli forces still fighting in Gaza, on high alert for war with Iran-backed Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, and heavily engaged against armed Palestinian factions in the occupied West Bank, army commanders have been acutely aware of the strain facing their soldiers.

Both men face the threat of international arrest warrants over the campaign in Gaza - which the enclave's Health Ministry says has killed over 40,000 Palestinians - following a request from the International Criminal Court's prosecutor in May.

That possibility has caused outrage in Israel but the issue of responsibility for the military and security failures that allowed the Oct. 7 attack to happen has been behind much of the tension in Israeli politics since then.

Last month, Gallant said both he and Netanyahu should be investigated, touching on widespread criticism of the prime minister in Israel for not accepting responsibility for one of the biggest disasters in the country's history.

Any such inquiry would lay significant blame on the defence minister among others.

"He knows he's going to go. He wants to go as the successful minister of defence that brought Israel into safer borders," Talshir said.

(Editing by Timothy Heritage)