Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. (Photo: Abir Sultan / EPA-EFE) 
Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar has congratulated the Yemeni Houthi group for its missile attack on Israel and said this sent a message to its foe, the Houthi Al-Massirah TV reported on Monday.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant told US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Monday that the window was closing for a diplomatic solution to the standoff with the Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement in southern Lebanon.
Israel rattled by talk that Netanyahu may replace defence minister
Reports that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was considering firing Defense Minister Yoav Gallant shook the political landscape and sent Israeli financial markets lower on Monday.
Israel’s leading television channels and news websites reported that Netanyahu, under pressure from far-right coalition partners, was contemplating firing Gallant and replacing him with a former ally turned rival, Gideon Saar, who is currently a member of the opposition.
Such a move would be a major shock to the political and security landscape, especially with the looming threat of all-out war between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The shekel weakened by 1% to nearly 3.75 against the dollar, while main Tel Aviv share indices were down 1.4% to 1.6%
The Israeli currency was expected to appreciate after data on Sunday showed Israel’s inflation rate rose more than expected to 3.6% in August, a jump analysts said would delay rate cuts well into 2025 in contrast to expected rate cuts in the United States and Europe.
Netanyahu denied that he was in negotiations with Saar, though he did not refer to his plans for Gallant. Saar denied that he was negotiating with some members of the coalition.
It would not be the first time Netanyahu has tried to fire Gallant. The two have been at odds over government policies and, more recently, the handling of the war in Gaza and the terms of a possible hostage release and ceasefire deal with the Islamist militant group Hamas.
Centrist legislators criticised Netanyahu for getting sidetracked by political wrangling rather than focusing on the task at hand.
“Instead of the prime minister being busy with victory over Hamas, returning the hostages, with the war against Hezbollah and allowing [evacuated] residents of the north to return to their homes, he is busy with despicable political dealings and replacing the defence minister,” wrote centrist legislator Benny Gantz on social media.
Police minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who heads an ultranationalist party in Netanyahu’s coalition, has for months been advocating to replace Gallant and called for his immediate dismissal.
“We must resolve the situation in the north and Gallant is not the right man to lead this,” said Ben Gvir, referring to a possible escalation with Hezbollah.
Tens of thousands of Israelis have been displaced near the Lebanese border in the north due to daily rocket fire from Hezbollah.
Gallant, who rose to the rank of general during a 35-year military career, on Sunday told US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin he was committed to returning residents to their homes and that the “possibility for an agreed framework is running out”.
On Monday, he said the only way to return residents evacuated from the north to their homes was with military action.
In March 2023, Netanyahu fired Gallant after he broke ranks with the government and urged a halt to a highly contested plan to overhaul the judicial system. That triggered mass protests and Netanyahu backtracked.
Hamas chief praises Houthis for attack on Israel
Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar has congratulated the Yemeni Houthi group for its missile attack on Israel and said this sent a message to its foe, the Houthi Al-Massirah TV reported on Monday.
The Iran-aligned Houthis, who control northern Yemen, reached central Israel with a missile on Sunday for the first time, prompting Netanyahu to say Israel would inflict a “heavy price” on them.
“I congratulate you on your success in reaching the depth of the enemy entity,” Sinwar said in a letter to Houthi leader Abdel-Malek al-Houthi.
Sinwar is leading Hamas in the war against Israel in the Gaza Strip, now in its 12th month.
The Hamas chief said that Israel’s plans to neutralise the militant group had failed.
“I assure you that the resistance is fine. We have prepared ourselves to fight a long battle of attrition,” he said.
The Houthis published on Monday an almost two-minute video of what they said was footage of the “hypersonic” missile named Palestine 2 being launched in the Sunday attack on Israel.
The Yemeni group’s video said the missile’s range was 2,150km, with speeds of up to 16 Mach.
“It possesses high ability to manoeuvre beyond the world’s newest and most powerful air defence systems, including the Iron Dome,” said the group.
An Israeli military official said the missile was hit by an interceptor and fragmented in the air. Missile pieces landed in fields and near a railway station. There were no direct casualties but nine people were lightly hurt while seeking cover.
‘Time running out for diplomatic solution with Hezbollah’ - Gallant
Gallant told his US counterpart Austin on Monday that the window was closing for a diplomatic solution to the standoff with the Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement in southern Lebanon.
Gallant’s remarks came as the White House Special Envoy Amos Hochstein visited Israel to discuss the crisis on the northern border where Israeli troops have been exchanging missile fire with Hezbollah forces for months.
“The possibility for an agreed framework in the northern arena is running out,” Gallant told Austin in a phone call, according to a statement from his office.
As long as Hezbollah continued to tie itself to Hamas in Gaza, where Israeli forces have been engaged for almost a year, “the trajectory is clear”, he said.
The visit by Hochstein, who was due to meet Netanyahu, came amid efforts to find a diplomatic path out of the crisis, which has forced tens of thousands on both sides of the border to leave their homes.
On Monday, Israeli media reported that the head of the army’s northern command had recommended a rapid border operation to create a buffer zone in southern Lebanon.
While the war in Gaza has been Israel’s main focus since the attack by Hamas-led gunmen on 7 October, the precarious situation in the north has fuelled fears of a regional conflict that could drag in the United States and Iran.
A missile barrage by Hezbollah the day after 7 October opened the latest phase of the conflict and since then there have been daily exchanges of rockets, artillery fire and missiles, with Israeli jets striking deep into Lebanese territory.
Hezbollah has said it does not seek a wider war at present but would fight if Israel launched one.
Israeli officials have said for months that Israel cannot accept the clearance of its northern border areas indefinitely but while troops remain committed to Gaza, there have also been questions about the military’s readiness for an invasion of southern Lebanon.
UN experts censure Western support for Israel since Gaza war
UN human rights experts criticised mostly Western states on Monday for continuing to support Israel despite what they described as a genocide in Gaza which might turn Israel into a “pariah” nation.
The humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza as a result of more than 11 months of conflict has prompted questions about Western states’ long-standing political and military support for Israel, including from the US and Britain which provide arms.
“Shockingly, in the face of the abyss reached in the OPT [Occupied Palestinian Territories] … most member states remained inactive at best, or actively aiding and assisting Israel’s criminal conduct,” Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in the OPT, told a press conference in Geneva, repeating allegations of genocide.
Israel denies the allegations and says it takes steps to reduce the risk of harm to civilians and that at least a third of the Palestinian fatalities in Gaza are militants.
Albanese, an Italian lawyer, said she was referring to Western states as well as some Gulf nations and others.
“I think it’s unavoidable for Israel to become a pariah in the face of its continuous, relentless, vilifying assault of the United Nations, on top of millions of Palestinians,” she said, citing verbal and military attacks on UN facilities in Gaza.
She also questioned Israel’s right to a seat at the United Nations, acquired in 1949. “Should there be a consideration of its membership as part of this organisation which Israel seems to have zero respect for?” she asked.
In response to her comments, Israel’s permanent mission to the UN in Geneva criticised Albanese. “She is not fit to hold any position at the United Nations, and this has been made clear by many,” it said.
Iran denies providing hypersonic missiles to Yemen’s Houthis
Tehran has not sent hypersonic missiles to Yemen’s Houthis, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said in a televised news conference on Monday, a day after the Iran-backed group said a missile it fired at Israel was a hypersonic one.
Netanyahu said Israel would inflict a “heavy price” on the Houthis who control northern Yemen, after they reached central Israel with a missile on Sunday for the first time.
“It takes a person a week to travel to Yemen [from Iran], how could this missile have gotten there? We don’t have such missiles to provide to Yemen,” said Pezeshkian.
However, last year Iran presented what it described as Tehran’s first domestically made hypersonic ballistic missile, with state media publishing pictures of the missile named “Fattah” at a ceremony. DM
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