Israel's Lapid Calls On War Cabinet Minister Gantz To Resign

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid called on War Cabinet Minister Benny Gantz on Sunday to resign from the government.

In an interview with Israeli public radio, Lapid criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Saturday call for unity.

"They use (the term) unity when it suits them and then they do what they want, and this must stop," the opposition leader said.

"It is not really a government, it is a state of complete chaos and should not be legitimized," he added.

Lapid said Gantz, the leader of the National Unity Party, must "withdraw from Netanyahu's failed government."

"This is a crazy government. They send aid trucks to Gaza and then government ministers send their militias to stop it," he said, referring to settler attacks on aid trucks on their way to the besieged Gaza Strip.

On Saturday, Netanyahu asked Gantz to stay in the emergency unity government.

"I call on Benny Gantz - don't leave the emergency government. Don't give up on unity," Netanyahu wrote on X.

Last month, Gantz set June 8 as a deadline for Netanyahu to set a post-war plan in Gaza or he will leave the coalition. On Saturday, however, he delayed his planned press conference.

Israel has continued its brutal offensive on Gaza since an Oct. 7 Hamas attack despite a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire.

More than 37,000 Palestinians have since been killed in Gaza, most of them women and children, and over 84,500 others injured, according to local health authorities.

Eight months into the Israeli war, vast tracts of Gaza lay in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water, and medicine.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, whose latest ruling ordered Tel Aviv to immediately halt its operation in the southern city of Rafah, where over a million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on May 6.

Writing by Ikram Kouachi -