Live Updates: Israelis Protest Firing of Defense Minister

The men had repeatedly clashed over domestic issues as well as the conduct of the war. Mr. Gallant, a popular and experienced former general, was pushing for a cease-fire deal in Gaza that would secure the release of hostages held there. His firing removed the main proponent in the Israeli government for such an agreement.

But it quickly prompted accusations that Mr. Netanyahu was prioritizing personal goals over national ones by trying to appease the right wing of his coalition. Centrist columnists described it as an attack on democracy, and protesters blocked traffic and lit bonfires on a major Tel Aviv highway overnight.

Yair Lapid, a rival of Mr. Netanyahu, told a news conference on Wednesday that Gallant’s firing was “not normal.”

“There is no one left in the government,” he added. “The prime minister cannot be trusted, the cabinet cannot be trusted, the last person who could be trusted in this crazy government was fired yesterday.”

Mr. Netanyahu opted to replace Mr. Gallant with Israel Katz — a staunch ally who was serving as foreign minister and is viewed as unlikely to criticize or push back against his hard-line approach to cease-fire discussions. Unlike Mr. Gallant, a popular and experienced former general, Mr. Katz has never held a top military position.

Here’s what else to know:

• U.S. election: Israel’s right-wing government celebrated Donald J. Trump’s victory effusively. Even before the race was officially called, Mr. Netanyahu spoke of “true friendship” in congratulating Mr. Trump on a “huge victory.” The results of the U.S. election could have major implications on the American approach to the war in the Middle East. Mr. Gallant had maintained close contact with senior U.S. officials, who often chose to communicate with him instead of Mr. Netanyahu.

• Hezbollah rockets: Air-raid sirens sounded across central Israel on Wednesday morning, including in Tel Aviv for the first time in about a week. Israel’s military said that “approximately 10 projectiles” had been launched into Israel from Lebanon, and that some were intercepted. The barrage came 40 days after the death of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike. The date holds symbolic weight in Islam, where 40 days mark the end of the formal grieving period.

• Syria strikes: As Israel expands its war efforts in the Middle East, it appears to be intensifying its focus on Syria. The Israeli military announced on Tuesday that it had struck targets in Syria for the second day in a row, attacks it said were aimed at cutting off the flow of weapons and intelligence between Hezbollah, the armed Lebanese group, and its sponsor, Iran. The announcement was the third time in a week that Israel made the rare admission of attacking inside Syria.

“Your historic return to the White House offers a new beginning for America and a powerful recommitment to the great alliance between Israel and America. This is a huge victory!” the Israeli leader enthused, signing off, “In true friendship, yours, Benjamin and Sara Netanyahu.”

Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s ultranationalist minister of national security, posted a festive “Yesssss” on social media, along with emojis of a flexed bicep and the Israeli and American flags, even before the last polls had closed in Alaska.

An overwhelming majority of Jewish Israelis view Mr. Trump as a better option for Israel’s interests than Vice President Kamala Harris. They assume that he will go easier on Israel than the Biden administration, which has widely supported Israel’s war effort in Gaza over the past year but has also criticized the humanitarian aspects of it, including the high civilian death toll.

Mr. Netanyahu may now feel emboldened by the prospect of a more amenable U.S. president as he continues to insist on total victory in Israel’s wars and engages in a high-wire exchange of blows with its archenemy, Iran.

In a sign of lesser restraint, Mr. Netanyahu on Tuesday fired his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, a main point man with the Biden administration, against a background of differences over ending the war in Gaza and over pressing domestic issues that were threatening the stability of Mr. Netanyahu’s governing coalition.

Mr. Trump has, like the Biden administration, called for Israel to wrap up the wars in Gaza and Lebanon that were set off by the Hamas-led terrorist attack against Israel 13 months ago, but analysts say that a Trump administration would probably support ending them on terms more favorable to Israel.

That sentiment is largely based on Mr. Trump’s first term, when he bestowed political gifts on Mr. Netanyahu’s previous government, including moving the United States Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

But analysts also note that the policies of the next Trump administration are unknown, and that Mr. Trump is notoriously unpredictable.

“I think Netanyahu prefers the unpredictability of Trump over Harris,” said Kobi Michael, a fellow at the Misgav Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy, a conservative-leaning Jerusalem-based research group. “But there’s a degree of wishful thinking,” he said, “because Trump can easily turn on us in seconds.”

Mr. Trump’s relationship with Mr. Netanyahu has become more complicated. Last year, Mr. Trump publicly accused the Israeli prime minister of having let the United States down by pulling out of an operation to kill Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the leader of Iran’s Quds Force, at the last minute in 2020.

Still, analysts said, there is likely to be a natural affinity between a second Trump administration and Mr. Netanyahu’s current governing coalition, the most right-wing and religiously conservative in Israeli history.

The Trump victory may also bolster Mr. Netanyahu at home at a time of political turmoil after Mr. Gallant’s dismissal.

“A Trump win strengthens Netanyahu politically at home, because there’s a feeling he’s on our side,” said Mazal Mualem, an Israeli political commentator for Al-Monitor, a Middle East news site, and the author of a biography of the Israeli leader, “Cracking the Netanyahu Code.”

“It gives Netanyahu a tailwind,” she added.

Trump — who took staunch pro-Israel stances during his term as president — has expressed his support of the country’s invasion and bombardment of Gaza. But he has also urged Israel to “finish up” the war.

Yair Lapid, another opposition leader, called Netanyahu’s firing of Gallant a political move that risked national security. “What happened yesterday is not normal. It goes beyond all logic,” he told the news conference. “Let every Hebrew mother know: the army has no one to trust.”

The Israeli military said the sirens were triggered by “projectiles” fired from Lebanon.

“Netanyahu saw Gallant as the opposition within his own coalition,” said Nadav Shtrauchler, a political analyst and former strategist for Mr. Netanyahu. “Now, it will be easier for him to go in his own direction, not just politically, but militarily and strategically.”

Mr. Netanyahu swiftly denied that he would use Mr. Gallant’s departure to fire other senior members of the security establishment. Still, commentators speculated that by replacing Mr. Gallant with Israel Katz, who is expected to be a more pliant defense minister, it would be easier for Mr. Netanyahu to remove the military chief of staff, Herzi Halevi.

But in firing the defense minister, Mr. Netanyahu has drawn accusations that he is prioritizing personal goals over national ones to appease far-right members of his coalition. And it suggested that he will double down on policies that are either deeply unpopular, in the case of the exemption for the ultra-Orthodox, or at least polarizing — like his refusal to compromise in the cease-fire negotiations with Hamas.

In a signal of the widespread discontent over Mr. Netanyahu’s decision, centrist columnists described it as an attack on democracy, while tens of thousands of protesters spilled into the streets in Israel on Tuesday night, blocking a major highway.

Mr. Netanyahu is “evidently calculating that it will only be a short term firestorm and he will then be left in a better position,” said Michael Koplow, an analyst at the Israel Policy Forum, a New York-based research group.

But his support for the policies opposed by Mr. Gallant “will cost him in the long term,” Mr. Koplow said. “So even if his short term calculation is correct, he may turn out to be penny wise and pound foolish.”

On issues that matter most to Israel’s critics, like the conduct of Israel’s wars in Gaza and Lebanon, Mr. Gallant was fairly aligned with Mr. Netanyahu.

Prosecutors at the International Criminal Court sought arrest warrants for both men in relation to the Gaza offensive. It was Mr. Gallant who played a bigger day-to-day role in managing a campaign against Hamas that has killed tens of thousands of Gazans and damaged most of its buildings. Mr. Gallant was also one of the first ministers to push for the killing of Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader, months before the government signed off on his assassination.

But within Israel, Mr. Gallant was seen as a thorn in Mr. Netanyahu’s side.

His public disputes with Mr. Netanyahu began several months before the war began, when in March 2023 he spoke out against the prime minister’s efforts to overhaul the judicial system. Mr. Netanyahu fired him days later, only to rescind his dismissal after mass protests swept the country.

During the war, Mr. Gallant had spoken publicly about Palestinian governance in postwar Gaza, an idea that Mr. Netanyahu had avoided discussing in detail for fear of angering far-right allies who seek to settle Jewish civilians in the territory.

And Mr. Gallant had developed a strong and independent relationship with the Biden administration, irking Mr. Netanyahu, whose relationship with President Biden has become fractious even as the president continues to arm and fund Israel’s military.

Johnatan Reiss and Gabby Sobelman contributed reporting.

Mr. Netanyahu announced his decision in a video statement published by his office, saying that “significant gaps on handling the battle” had created a wedge between him and Mr. Gallant. “In recent months, that trust between the defense minister and I was damaged,” the prime minister said.

Mr. Netanyahu named the country’s foreign minister, Israel Katz, who has minimal defense experience, to replace Mr. Gallant.

Here’s more background on the ousted defense minister.

A history of clashes

After the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which killed about 1,200 people and led to the abduction of 250 others, Mr. Gallant emerged as the most high-level dissident to Mr. Netanyahu within his own government.

The ousted defense minister, who was a moderate voice on security issues, had been viewed as an internal roadblock to Mr. Netanyahu’s approach to cease-fire talks. Mr. Gallant repeatedly broke with Mr. Netanyahu and urged him to reach a deal to free the remaining hostages in Gaza.

In August, the defense minister questioned the Israeli leader’s goal of “total victory” over Hamas in Gaza, calling it “nonsense.”

The defense minister also suggested that Mr. Netanyahu was letting Israel slide toward long-term military rule in Gaza — a choice that Mr. Gallant said would be disastrous.

Mr. Katz, an ally of the prime minister, is unlikely to stand in the way of Mr. Netanyahu’s approach to cease-fire talks, which critics say have undermined the possibility of a deal.

Even before the war in Gaza, Mr. Gallant had repeatedly clashed with Mr. Netanyahu over the prime minister’s hotly contested plans to weaken the country’s judicial system.

Amid widespread street protests, in March 2023, after Mr. Gallant gave a speech warning that the proposals were tearing the country apart, Mr. Netanyahu sought to fire him.

That attempted dismissal roiled the country further, prompting mass protests and a general strike. Mr. Netanyahu ultimately backed down and walked back his decision to oust Mr. Gallant.

Political and family background

Before entering politics, Mr. Gallant, 65, served as a senior general who led the Israeli military’s southern command, which oversees Gaza. In 2010, he was tapped to potentially serve as the military’s chief of staff, but the appointment never came to pass.

Mr. Gallant joined the Israel Defense Forces in 1974 and served in a commando unit before holding various leadership roles over a 35-year military career.

After leaving the military, Mr. Gallant entered politics, first with a centrist party before switching over to Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud faction. In 2022, about a dozen years after his failed bid to become chief of staff, he became defense minister in Mr. Netanyahu’s right-wing government, taking him to the apex of the Israeli security establishment

Mr. Gallant studied economics and business administration at the University of Haifa and completed a senior management program at Harvard University, according to his Ministry of Defense profile.

He lives in Moshav Amikam and is married to Claudine Gallant, with whom he has three children.

Response to Gallant’s firing

In a televised speech on Tuesday, Mr. Gallant blamed his dismissal on disagreements with Mr. Netanyahu over three issues.

Mr. Gallant said the two differed over:

• The proposed mandatory conscription of ultra-Orthodox Israelis.

• A cease-fire deal in Gaza that would secure the release of hostages held there.

• And Mr. Gallant’s insistence on an independent commission to investigate the security failures that led to the Oct. 7 attacks.

“I’ve been responsible for the security apparatus during the past two years, its successes, failures, and moments of pain,” Mr. Gallant said of his call for an investigative commission. “Only sunlight, and an investigation of the truth, would allow us to draw lessons and build our forces to face the challenges of the future.”

Late on Tuesday, large crowds of protesters opposing Mr. Netanyahu’s firing of the defense minister took to city streets. They blocked traffic and lit bonfires on a major highway in Tel Aviv.

In Jerusalem, protesters also gathered near the Mr. Netanyahu’s residence.

Johnatan Reiss contributed reporting.

Mr. Gallant, who has argued for a cease-fire deal in Gaza that would secure the release of hostages held there, said he was fired for three primary reasons: he had called for universal conscription, prioritized the return of hostages still being held in Gaza and demanded an independent commission to investigate security failures that led to the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas.

But Mr. Netanyahu has fired Mr. Gallant before — and then un-fired him — and there have been many public disagreements between the two men, who both belong to the Likud party. Here are some of the high-profile clashes between Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Gallant that led up to today’s events.

Conscription of the ultra-Orthodox

In June, the Israeli Supreme Court ordered an end to a longstanding exemption from mandatory military service for the country’s ultra-Orthodox Jews. Mr. Gallant approved initial conscription orders for thousands of ultra-Orthodox men.

The ultra-Orthodox exemption has long polarized Israeli society, where most Jewish 18-year-olds, men and women, are conscripted for years of obligatory service. Many ultra-Orthodox view sending their children to the Israeli military as unacceptable, fearing they might be swayed by secularism or looser interpretations of religious practice.

As the ultra-Orthodox population has grown to over one million — more than 13 percent of the country — other Jewish Israelis have become increasingly frustrated and resentful of its military exemption. They say it is fundamentally unfair and untenable, especially as Israel is fighting wars on multiple fronts.

Political analysts said that the government’s internal struggle over conscription also threatened the stability of Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition, which depends on the support of two ultra-Orthodox parties that support the exemption.

Yesterday, Mr. Gallant approved the conscription of an additional 7,000 ultra-Orthodox men, adding new fuel to the dispute.

‘Total victory’ over Hamas

Mr. Netanyahu’s office publicly slammed Mr. Gallant in August after Israeli news media reported that the defense minister had disparaged the prime minister’s goal of achieving a “total victory” over Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Mr. Gallant reportedly told lawmakers in a private security briefing that the idea was “nonsense.”

“When Gallant adopts the anti-Israel narrative, he harms the chances of reaching a hostage-release deal,” the prime minister’s office said in a statement. Victory over Hamas and the release of hostages, the statement said, is the “clear directive of Prime Minister Netanyahu and the cabinet, and it obligates everyone — including Gallant.”

In his video statement on Tuesday about dismissing Mr. Gallant, Mr. Netanyahu began by saying that his primary obligation as prime minister was to ensure Israel’s security and lead the country to “total victory,” and he again accused Mr. Gallant of playing into narratives that undermine Israel’s interests.

Postwar reckonings, for Gaza and Israel

Mr. Netanyahu’s rift with the defense minister was evident in May when Mr. Gallant, in a televised address, criticized Mr. Netanyahu’s lack of vision for a postwar Gaza.

This failure, Mr. Gallant said, was driving Israel toward two possible outcomes, both unappealing: Either Israeli would occupy Gaza militarily, or Hamas would return to power, undermining Israel’s military gains. “We will pay in blood and many victims, for no purpose, as well as a heavy economic price,” Mr. Gallant said.

The defense minister also implicitly accused Mr. Netanyahu of putting his own political survival above national interests.

In addition, Mr. Gallant and other Israeli officials have called for an investigation into the security failures that led to the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel that ignited the current conflicts. More than a year into the war, there has been no such reckoning, which could lay blame at the feet of both the prime minister and the defense minister.

Mr. Netanyahu has said that an investigation should wait until after the war. Mr. Gallant said on Tuesday after his dismissal that “only sunlight, and an investigation of the truth, would allow us to draw lessons and build our forces to face the challenges of the future.”

Israel’s judicial overhaul

In early 2023, Mr. Netanyahu announced that he had fired Mr. Gallant — and then reversed his decision 15 days later — during a contentious clash within Israel over Mr. Netanyahu’s proposed overhaul of the judicial system to limit the power of Israel’s Supreme Court

With many military reservists vowing not to serve if the overhaul was enacted, Mr. Gallant criticized the plan and said it threatened military readiness. His dismissal spurred nationwide protests and intensified an already dramatic domestic crisis — one of the gravest in Israeli history, which many in Israel have come to believe helped to embolden Hamas to execute the Oct. 7 attacks.

The episode cemented Mr. Gallant’s reputation among some Israelis as a bulwark against the most extreme far-right elements of Mr. Netanyahu’s government, and the defense minister seemed to embrace that image throughout the war.

Announcing the decision last year to keep Mr. Gallant in his cabinet, after all, Mr. Netanyahu said: “There were disagreements between us, even serious disagreements on some issues, but I decided to leave the disagreements behind us.”

Aaron Boxerman contributed reporting

In a video statement issued by his office, Mr. Netanyahu announced the change and said Gideon Saar would replace Mr. Katz as foreign minister.

Mr. Katz’s tenure as foreign minister was defined by the regional conflict, as he sought to defend Israel against increasingly fierce and widespread global criticism for how it carried out the war, first against Hamas in Gaza and later against Hezbollah in Lebanon. Both militant groups are backed by Iran, a country which attacked and was attacked by Israel during his time as the country’s top diplomat.

After Israel barred the secretary general of the United Nations, António Guterres, from the country last month for failing to strenuously condemn an Iranian missile attack, one of the largest such barrages in history, Mr. Katz criticized him. In a statement, Mr. Katz said of the secretary general “anyone who cannot unequivocally condemn Iran’s heinous attack on Israel, as nearly all the countries of the world have done, does not deserve to set foot on Israeli soil.”

Mr. Katz previously served as foreign minister from 2019-2020 before being reappointed in early 2024 as part of a political agreement implemented before the country’s war against Hamas. He is a former member of the Israeli Parliament and has worked in other government positions such as minister of finance, transportation, energy and agriculture.

He has never held a top military position, unlike the popular Mr. Gallant, an experienced former general.

After former President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in 2017, Mr. Katz, then serving as a minister of transportation and intelligence, petitioned to name a train station after the American leader, “for his courageous and historic decision.”

Like the prime minister, Mr. Katz is a decades-long member of the Likud party and a supporter of the settlement movement.

Before firing Mr. Gallant on Tuesday, Mr. Netanyahu had clashed with him both over the conduct of the war and domestic issues.

The two disagreed over proposals for the future administration of Gaza and the cease-fire talks. They also disagreed over legislation supporting the overhaul of the Israeli judiciary and about the conscription of ultra-Orthodox Israelis into the country’s armed forces.

“In recent months, the trust between me and the defense minister was damaged,” Mr. Netanyahu said on Tuesday.

The military has said that Hezbollah’s munitions unit recently expanded its activities into Syria, and accused the armed group of deliberately establishing weapons infrastructure within civilian areas.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based group that monitors violence in Syria, on Tuesday reported that Israeli jets struck warehouses in and near Al Qusayr, an industrial city, and that about seven explosions were heard. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

Last week, Israel said it had hit Hezbollah weapons storage facilities and command centers in Al Qusayr “to reduce the transfer of weapons from Iran through Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon.”

On Monday, the Israeli Air Force said it had targeted a branch of Hezbollah’s intelligence headquarters in Syria. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that Israeli strike hit three farms that had previously been used as camps by members of Hezbollah and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Syria’s foreign ministry on Monday condemned the attacks, calling on the United Nations to act swiftly to stop the Israeli incursions, according to Syria’s state news agency SANA.

As Israel expands its war efforts in the Middle East, it appears to be intensifying its focus on Syria. On Sunday, the Israeli military said it had transferred a Syrian citizen to Israel for interrogation after a special operation in Syrian territory that took place in connection with “Iranian terror networks” near the Golan Heights.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday said that regardless of whether a cease-fire deal could be reached with Hezbollah in Lebanon, there were several keys to achieving security along Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, including “cutting Hezbollah’s oxygen line from Iran via Syria.”

The strikes in Syria comes as the Israeli military continues its fight in Gaza, Lebanon and in the occupied West Bank. The Israeli military raided Palestinian villages in the northern part of the West Bank early Tuesday, setting off clashes with militants. Four Palestinians were killed, according to Palestinian health authorities.

It was not clear whether the dead included militants or civilians and Palestinian authorities do not differentiate in their death tolls. But the Israeli military said it had engaged in firefights during the raids that killed militants in the village of Tamoun and that it had carried out airstrikes there and near the city of Jenin.

The armed wing of Islamic Jihad, an Iranian-backed militant group, said fighters in villages south of Jenin were firing bullets at Israeli forces and detonating explosive devices.

Israel has been ramping up a crackdown in the West Bank that began before the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks, with authorities increasingly concerned about bolder and more sophisticated attacks by Palestinian militants. The raids have left a swath of destruction in the Israeli-occupied territory, churning up roads and leaving many civilians scared to leave their homes.

Israeli officials have said destroying the roads was necessary because of the threat of buried explosives.

Sadeq Nazzal, 60, an owner of a nursery in Qabatiya, not far from Jenin, said he heard a powerful explosion on Tuesday morning. He described a chaotic scene, with military vehicles moving along the main north-south highway and sounds of gunfire in the distance.

“We’ve become used to this situation,” he said. “But every time it happens, it upends our lives. Workplaces and schools shut down.”

During a funeral procession held in Tamoun, one of the Palestinians killed on Tuesday had been wrapped in an Islamic Jihad flag. Palestinian militant groups often drape their fallen members in flags bearing their emblems. They also will occasionally claim unaffiliated people as being among their ranks.

The raids in the West Bank suggested that Israel’s military was continuing to target armed fighters in the northern part of the territory even as it conducts major operations in Gaza and Lebanon and braces for the possibility of a wider conflict with Iran.

In northern Gaza, a deadly strike hit the town of Beit Lahia overnight, Zaher al-Waheidi, an official at the health ministry in Gaza, said on Tuesday. Israel launched a wide-scale operation in northern Gaza in October, targeting what it says is a resurgence of Hamas in the area.

The Israeli military said it struck a weapons storage facility where a militant was operating. It said it had sought to reduce the risk to civilians before the strike, without explaining what measures it had taken.

Video from the scene obtained by Reuters showed people digging through rubble around a half-collapsed building in Beit Lahia, indicating it was caused by a recent strike.

The New York Times independently verified that the scene in the Reuters video matched other imagery captured by professional photographers on Tuesday morning. Walls and concrete beams had collapsed, and a sofa appeared half buried amid the debris. In a clearing surrounded by heavily damaged buildings, four white plastic shrouds could be seen being buried at a makeshift grave.

Here’s what else is happening in the Middle East:

• Defense minister dismissal: Mr. Netanyahu fired his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, on Tuesday over differences on the prosecution of the war in Gaza and over domestic political issues. Mr. Gallant was pushing for a cease-fire deal in Gaza to secure the release of hostages, and his dismissal removes the main proponent in the government for such an agreement. The two men had also clashed over the conscription of ultra-Orthodox Israelis.

• Gaza evacuations: The World Health Organization is preparing to evacuate an expected 113 critically injured and sick Palestinians from Gaza on Wednesday in what would be one of the biggest such operations in months, according to Rik Peeperkorn, the organization’s representative for the Palestinian territories.

• Polio vaccines: The Gaza Health Ministry and U.N. aid agencies extended an emergency polio vaccination campaign in northern Gaza by an additional day, aiming to increase vaccination coverage among children under 10. The start of the second phase of the campaign had been postponed because of a lack of access and assurances about pauses in the fighting, according to U.N. agencies.

• Lebanon strikes continue: The Israeli military continued to conduct airstrikes across Lebanon on Tuesday. At least 20 people were killed and more than a dozen were wounded by an Israeli strike in the Lebanese town of Barja, a largely Sunni Muslim area outside of southern Beirut, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. Earlier in the day, one person was killed and 20 others were wounded in the nearby town of Jiyeh, a popular summer resort destination along the coast, according to the health ministry.

Rawan Sheikh Ahmad, Nick Cumming-Bruce, Nader Ibrahim and Euan Ward contributed reporting.