Israel updates war goals with fate of defence minister unclear

By Maayan Lubell

JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Israel on Tuesday added the safe return of its citizens to their homes near the border with Lebanon to its formal war goals amid reports that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu planned to replace his defence minister with a hawkish rival.

Netanyahu's office said he laid out the war aim in an overnight security cabinet meeting.

Tens of thousands of people have been displaced from towns and villages on both sides of the border by near-daily exchanges of fire between Israeli forces and the Lebanese Hezbollah.

Iran-backed Hezbollah opened a second front against Israel a day after the war in the Gaza Strip began with an attack by the Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel on Oct. 7, and fighting across the Israel-Lebanon border has since escalated.

"The Security Cabinet has updated the objectives of the war to include the following: Returning the residents of the north securely to their homes. Israel will continue to act to implement this objective," a statement from Netanyahu's office said.

Israel has said it prefers a diplomatic solution that would see Hezbollah moved farther back from the border.

However, Hezbollah, which also says it wants to avoid all-out conflict, says that only an end to the war in Gaza will stop the fighting. Gaza ceasefire efforts are deadlocked after months of faltering talks mediated by Qatar, Egypt and the United States.

Soon after the security cabinet meeting ended, Israeli broadcasters reported that Netanyahu and Gideon Saar were close to finalising a deal that would see Saar replace Yoav Gallant as defence minister.

Saar, a former justice minister, has been critical of the government's war policies over the past few months, saying it should take the initiative more and take decisive action against Israel's enemies, including Iran.

Saar has been critical about making a deal with Hamas to end the Gaza conflict, while Gallant has been pushing for a truce that would include swapping Israeli hostages in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners.

Netanyahu would be strengthening his political position by adding Saar's four-seat faction to his coalition as he would be less reliant on each one of his other partners.

It could also ease two political headaches for Netanyahu, passing a state budget and a new conscription law that would be acceptable to his ultra-Orthodox coalition partners who want to keep religious Jewish seminary students out of the military.

In his role as defence minister, Gallant has often taken an independent line against Netanyahu.

He has dismissed Netanyahu's repeated aim of "total victory" in Gaza as nonsense. Gallant has also called for a clearer post-war plan that would see the enclave governed by Palestinians.

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.

(Reporting by Maayan Lubell and Ari Rabinovitch; Editing by Angus MacSwan)