He Defense Minister Yoav Gallant Israel has become one of the main faces of the war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, determined to return to their homes the thousands of inhabitants of the north displaced by the shooting of the armed movement of the neighboring country. Gallant has reiterated in recent weeks his goal of repelling fighters from Hezbollah of the border areas with northern Israel to make the area safe and allow the return of the displaced.
Nails 60,000 people have fled due to the projectiles launched almost daily by Hezbollah since October 8, when the Lebanese group opened a front against Israel in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas in the war in Gaza that broke out after its deadly attack against the south of the Jewish State. “Military action” is “the only means of guaranteeing the return of communities in northern Israel to their homes,” Gallant told US envoy Amos Hochstein on September 16.
The “center of gravity” of the war “is shifting to the north,” he declared a day later, referring to the Hezbollah front, which has since monopolized much of the importance in the conflict against Hamas in Gaza. “We are at the beginning of a new phase of the warwhich requires courage, determination and perseverance on our part,” insisted this retired general and one of the main figures in Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
And last Monday, during a visit to soldiers from an artillery unit deployed in the north of the country, he made a premonitory statement: “We will use all the capabilities we have.” A few hours later, the army launched a ground offensive against Hezbollahafter a week of intense bombings against the armed Islamist movement, which has left hundreds dead.
Many Israelis believe that war was inevitable given the development of Israel’s military capabilities. Hezbollah. “Gallant was one of the first to support the idea that Israel had to take the initiative in the north, a few days after the October 7 attacks,” says Michaël Horowitz, a geopolitics expert at the security consulting firm Le Beck, based in the Middle East.
“The reasoning was the following: In a war, it is preferable to fight the most powerful enemy first and the strength of Hezbollah far exceeds that of Hamas,” adds Calev Ben-Dor, a former analyst at the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Now, it is considered that Gallant, “rightly or wrongly, was previously aware of this situation because he bet on Israel’s ability to to take the initiative,” concludes Horowitz.
“Cohesive”
In Ben-Dor’s eyes, the defense minister emerges as a “responsible” figure, even among Israelis “who do not necessarily share his political opinions. “It is perceived that he concentrates on victory and the national interest (…) more than on low-level politics,” summarizes this former analyst. This popularity makes him more “cohesive” than his former ally and Prime Minister Netanyahu, Horowitz notes. However, his legacy will be forever tarnished as defense minister in office when 1,200 Israelis were killed and around 250 kidnapped, while a weak, improvised militia of a few thousand fighters looted 22 villages across southern Israel.
Although He joined Netanyahu’s same conservative party, Likud, in 2019.Gallant entered politics in a center-right formation (Kulanu) and both leaders have often been at odds. The Minister of Defense, for example, clearly declared himself in favor of closing a truce agreement with Hamas that would allow the release of the hostages in Gaza.
Israelis still remember the period when he was commander in chief of the southern region, which includes the area around Gaza, in the 2000s. That was when led operation “Cast Lead” in Gaza in late 2008 and early 2009, resulting in the deaths of 1,440 Palestinians and 13 Israelis. Since then he has explained that he was looking for a total victory against Hamas and that they stopped him, Horowitz notes. This “may have contributed to this image of a military strongman, who was retrospectively right in light of the October 7 attacks.”