Pro-Israel activist and IDF veteran Yoseph Haddad is contemplating a political party for Israel’s next Knesset elections, with recent polls showing strong support, especially from Jewish voters.
Yoseph Haddad, an Arab-Israeli pro-Israel advocacy activist and IDF veteran who has become a prominent media and social media voice in recent years, is considering establishing a new political party ahead of Israel’s next Knesset election, according to a new survey published on Wednesday.
The poll, conducted by the Midgam Institute under Mano Geva and commissioned by people close to Haddad, projected that a Haddad-led list would cross the electoral threshold and win four seats if elections were held today.
According to the poll, the four seats were drawn from voters across the political map, including from Likud, Otzma Yehudit, and supporters of former prime minister Naftali Bennett.
The survey found higher support for Haddad in the Jewish sector than in the Arab sector, with 73% support among Jewish respondents and 12% among Arab respondents. The report did not publish full methodological details such as sample size, field dates, or margin of error.
Yoseph Haddad plays in a soccer match in Shefayim, commemorating the 12 Israeli-Druze children killed by a Hezbollah rocket in Majdal Shams, wearing a shirt denouncing former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed by the IDF, in a picture taken August 25, 2025; illustrative. (credit: FLASH90)
The Midgam polling also referenced a separate scenario involving Brig.-Gen. (ret.) Ofer Winter, saying a party led by him polled at 2% and would remain below the threshold.
Haddad, who has described his work as focused on Israeli public diplomacy and Arab-Jewish relations inside Israel, has said he volunteered for combat service and was seriously wounded during the 2006 Second Lebanon War. He later founded Together Vouch for Each Other, which he has described as an effort to bridge gaps between Arab citizens and wider Israeli society.
Haddad currently in Munich to speak at anti-Iranian regime rally
According to a statement by Haddad, he is currently on an advocacy trip in Munich and is expected to speak at a rally backing the people of Iran and calling for the regime’s overthrow.
A representative for Haddad said he is “busy acting and fighting for the State of Israel in every arena in which he can influence,” adding that “all options are on the table.”
“The people of Israel deserve answers about how the terrible failure happened and how to prevent it from happening again,” former prime minister Naftali Bennett published on X/Twitter.
The protest was organized by the October Council, an activist group made up of hundreds of families affected by the massacre.
“The people of Israel deserve answers about how the terrible failure happened and how to prevent it from happening again,” former prime minister Naftali Bennett, who was present at the protest, published on X/Twitter.
Other opposition leaders were present alongside Bennett, including Yair Lapid, Avigdor Liberman, Benny Gantz, Gadi Eisenkot, and Yair Golan.
“Tonight in the square, we gathered with one clear call – the establishment of a state commission of inquiry. In our government, this will happen in the first days,” Lapid wrote on X.
In a separate event at Hostage Square, families of the hostages gathered to demand the return of the three missing hostages whose remains are still held by Hamas in Gaza.
Strong message against Netanyahu
“Nine ministers and officials in the government of default and disaster were called this week for the despicable task of training the creep called the ‘Special Investigation Committee.’ Their mission is to ensure that the truth is not investigated and never comes to light,” former MK Yizhar Shai, father of the late Yaron Shai, a Nahal Brigade soldier who fell on October 7, said.
Shai served as an MK for Gantz’s Blue and White party, and was Innovation, Science, and Technology minister.
Lior Akerman, a former brigadier-general who served as a Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) division head, said he used to identify with the right-wing policies in Israel, but the current events have made him understand that “the problems are no longer between right and left.”
“For three years now, the government has been attacking and harming the state’s institutions, its security organizations, the legal system, and the law,” Akerman said. He also claimed that the current administration is trampling on the values of statehood, morality, and unity in an effort to create a dictatorship.
Benny Gantz’s six-month government proposal to return all of the hostages and pass a haredi draft law is just what Israel needs, but it doesn’t address the major roadblocks.
On Saturday night, Blue and White party head Benny Gantz stood before the cameras and offered Israel a simple deal: build a short, focused “hostage-redemption and service-supporting” government for six months, set an agreed election date for the spring of 2026, and spend the interim period on two tasks only.
First, bring every hostage home. Second, pass a universal conscription framework that treats service as a national obligation, with real paths for military or civilian service and fewer loopholes.
In plain English, Gantz wants a unity cabinet with an expiration date and a narrow mission. He insists he will not join alone, calling on Opposition Leader Yair Lapid and Yisrael Beytenu chief Avigdor Lieberman to come with him, and repeats that his aim is not to “save Netanyahu,” but to save the hostages.
Pidyon shvuyim is a deep Jewish imperative, the redemption of captives. It is why hostage families have set the nation’s moral compass since October 7, 2023. Today, the official Israeli count says terror groups in Gaza hold about 50 hostages, at least 28 of them confirmed dead. Around 20 are believed to be alive, with grave concern for two others.
The government says it will resume negotiations, “on our terms,” after Hamas indicated openness to a new mediated proposal. That proposal’s contours have shifted, but the principle is clear: any serious deal requires choices that could crack the current coalition.
Haredi protesters against the IDF draft block Highway 4 near Bnei Brak, August 19, 2025. (credit: Shimon Baruch/TPS)
Now, the second pillar, the draft. Israel’s Supreme Court ruled in 2024 that, absent a new law, the state must draft ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students and stop funding institutions whose students evade service. That decision put a decades-old political compromise on a legal clock.
Since then, the government has sought a new bill. Every version is a fuse. Tighten enlistment and Haredi parties threaten to bolt. Soften it and the court, the army, and the broader public revolt.
Gantz is trying to cut through both knots with one rope: a narrow, time-bound government that exists only to pass a hostage deal and a service framework, then sends the country to the polls. He also says, pointedly, that a deal is attainable. And there is political oxygen for that claim. Lapid has offered a parliamentary “safety net” of 24 votes for any hostage agreement, no quid pro quo, just bring them home. If the far-right leaves the coalition, the votes would still be there to pass the deal in theory.
In practice, here is why it probably will not happen.
Reasons why Gantz’s proposal will probably fall through the cracks
First, the prime minister’s incentives. Benjamin Netanyahu has signaled he will negotiate, but “on Israel’s terms,” while planning expanded military operations. He governs by balancing partners to his right who oppose concessions in a hostage deal and partners to his ultra-Orthodox flank who demand a softer draft law. A six-month unity cabinet that passes both would solve Israel’s problems and create his. It would collapse the very leverage that keeps this coalition intact.
Netanyahu can also argue he does not need Gantz if Lapid’s safety net exists, which lets him pocket the leverage of the offer without paying the political price of a real unity reset.
Second, the coalition math. The draft law is an existential issue for Haredi parties. The court ruling is final, and public patience is thin. Any meaningful draft bill risks blowing up the coalition. Any cosmetic bill risks being thrown out in court. That is why this keeps returning as a crisis, week after week.
A temporary unity cabinet would absorb the blast so the country can move forward, which is precisely why existing partners will try to defuse it before it is lit.
Third, Gantz’s leverage is weaker than it was. Polls in recent days have his Blue and White party hovering near, or even dipping below, the electoral threshold. Rival opposition leaders worry he could waste center-left votes, as happened to Meretz in 2022, and they have little appetite to lend him political oxygen.
That makes it harder to assemble a credible unity line-up that can walk in together and walk out together six months later.
Fourth, the trust deficit. Israelis remember the 2020 “rotation” unity deal that collapsed in acrimony. Gantz still carries the scars of sitting with Netanyahu. Netanyahu still believes he can outlast rivals rather than empower them. Trust is not a policy, but in Israel, it is a governing tool, and there is not much of it left.
Still, let us say clearly what should be obvious. A six-month government with two jobs is exactly what Israel needs. The hostages come first. That is not a slogan. It is a policy choice. If twenty Israelis are still alive in Gaza, every day matters. A government that treats “bring them home” as its sole North Star is more likely to take the necessary political risks, use Lapid’s safety net, and bear the price.
The same is true for service. Most Israelis already carry the military and reserve burden. A fair service framework, with real civilian service tracks and real enforcement, would strengthen social cohesion and the IDF alike. The court has already forced the issue into the present tense.
Israel’s next regular election is currently scheduled for October 27, 2026. Gantz is proposing to move that up modestly, to spring 2026, after a short sprint to pass the two most urgent decisions facing the country. It is not radical. It is responsible.
So where does that leave us? With the right idea and a poor prognosis. Netanyahu’s survival instincts, the coalition’s red lines, Gantz’s polling slide, and the bitter lessons of the past make this plan unlikely to leave the podium and enter the plenum. I hope I am wrong. If Gantz, Lapid, Lieberman, and Netanyahu can surprise the nation and form a half-year government that returns the living and buries a broken draft system, I will be the first to write that I misread the moment.
Until then, expect more talk about “terms” and “timing,” more ultimatums from the extremes, and more hesitation. The hostages do not have that time. They need a government that behaves like a rescue team, not a focus group.
Gantz outlined two main goals of the temporary government: Returning all the hostages and passing the haredi draft law. Afterwards, he said it would dissolve and Israel would go to elections,
Blue and White Party head Benny Gantz called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, opposition leader Yair Lapid, and Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman to form a temporary “government of redemption for the hostages” for a period of six months, during a press conference on Saturday.
Gantz said that the temporary government should focus on two primary goals: securing the release of hostages held by Hamas and passing the controversial haredi (ultra-Orthodox) draft law.
The party leader also said that elections should be scheduled following the completion of these objectives.
“The government’s term will begin with a hostage deal that brings everyone home,” said Gantz. “Within weeks, we will formulate an Israeli service outline that recruits our ultra-Orthodox brothers and eases the burden on those already serving.
“Finally, we will announce an agreed-upon election date in the spring of 2026 and pass a law to dissolve the Knesset accordingly,” he said. “That is what is right for Israel.”
Leader of the Blue and White Party MK Benny Gantz leads a faction meeting at the Knesset, the Israeli parliament in Jerusalem, on June 30, 2025. (credit: Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)
Gantz addressed anticipated criticism of the move and dismissed claims that his initiative was politically motivated. He underscored that the proposal was solely for the purpose of rescuing the hostages and not to “save” Netanyahu’s government.
“I know, soon the poison factories will get to work. They will say I want to save Netanyahu. That is not true: I want to save the hostages,” he said.
“Some will say I am doing this because of the polls. I will remind them that I joined governments twice: once with 33 mandates and the second time when my party was leading in the polls.”}
Unity governments
Gantz has entered two unity governments under Netanyahu in the past. The last time was after the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023. However, he had then left the coalition due to disagreements with the prime minister, claiming that Netanyahu was preventing Israel from “moving forward to a real victory” in the war.
Yisrael Beytenu responded to Gantz’s proposal, saying that “the only government we will be part of is a broad Zionist government, and we will not take part in any spin.”
Blue and White responded to Yisrael Beytenu, saying that “we were elected to the Knesset in order to use our political power. To bring back the hostages and to support those who serve, one must take initiative, not sit in the stands and hand out advice.”
After the conference, Gantz was asked by a journalist if he had spoken to Lapid or Liberman in advance about his proposal.
He responded that he had tried reaching out to them but was unable to reach them.
“I didn’t succeed, maybe because of Shabbat. Lapid was in an interview, Liberman didn’t answer,” Gantz said.
Before the press conference, Lapid addressed the possibility of Gantz joining Netanyahu’s government in a Channel 12 interview.
“You’ve been deceived twice – why would you go in again? Do you want to be deceived a third time?” the opposition leader said, addressing his Knesset colleague.
Gantz’s proposal comes amid expected opposition from National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich to any potential hostage release deal.
Until now, opposition parties had primarily discussed offering a “safety net” to support the government in reaching a deal. Gantz’s statement, however, puts the possibility of his party entering the coalition on the table.
Netanyahu has not yet responded to the proposal or to the latest draft of a potential deal reportedly submitted this week by international mediators.
MK Alon Schuster (Blue and White) said on KAN News Wednesday that while no formal negotiations were underway regarding joining the government, all options would be considered if it meant rescuing hostages.
“At the moment, there are no talks about joining the government, but if we understand that this is what will lead to the release of hostages, that is what we will do. What do you expect – that we let the hostages die?” Schuster asked.
Lapid addressed the matter of providing a safety net on Thursday, pledging support for any hostage deal and offering political backing without preconditions.
“You have from me a safety net of 24 votes for any hostage deal. You do not even need to give anything in return – just bring them home,” he said.
Gantz’s proposal came as thousands demonstrated in Tel Aviv to call for a deal to free the captives while warning that the planned conquest of Gaza City puts the lives of the hostages at risk.
TEL AVIV — As he tries to cling to power, Benjamin Netanyahu is being buffeted by contradictory demands over the direction of the war in Gaza. His war cabinet is increasingly urging a cease-fire deal to be struck with Hamas — to secure the return of Israeli hostages — while lawmakers in his own Likud party are pushing in the opposite direction and pressing for military operations to remain unrelenting.
Unable to square the circle, the Israeli leader appears to have chosen to postpone decisions about the direction of the war, but it is doubtful they can be delayed for much longer. A public groundswell is starting to build for military operations to be put on hold and for a cease-fire to be reached with Hamas for the release of more than a hundred Israelis still being held in Gaza.
There’s rising alarm about the captives’ treatment and the conditions they are enduring. Thousands of Israelis took to the streets over the weekend calling for the hostages to be prioritized over the military campaign. And in a television interview Thursday, a war cabinet minister, Gadi Eisenkot, a former and highly popular chief of staff of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), warned the only way to save hostages in the near term is through a deal even if that comes at a high price.
Eisenkot, whose 25-year-old son and 19-year-old nephew died fighting in Gaza in December, also appeared to criticize Netanyahu’s management of the war with Hamas, suggesting the Israeli leadership is not telling the Israeli public the truth about the conflict and that talk of destroying Hamas is over-blown. A complete victory over the militant group is unrealistic, he said.
“Whoever speaks of the absolute defeat [of Hamas in Gaza] and of it no longer having the will or the capability [to harm Israel], is not speaking the truth. That is why we should not tell tall tales,” Eisenkot said.
Eisenkot also said elections should be held soon to restore public trust in the Israeli government following the devastating October 7 attack on southern Israel by Hamas. Eisenkot is seen by some as a future prime minister candidate, favored by some even over Benny Gantz, a former defense minister. The two are leaders of the centrist National Unity Party and agreed to join Netanyahu’s war cabinet after October 7 as a demonstration of national solidarity.
The Eisenkot interview, broadcast by Israel’s Channel 12 News, was especially damaging as it was broadcast hours after Netanyahu rejected in a press conference the idea of holding elections in the middle of a war. Netanyahu said he could continue in power well into 2025. He vowed to “bring about a complete victory” over Hamas.
Netanyahu’s indecision is also infuriating his own lawmakers — they worry there is a lack of defined goals beyond the slogan of “destroying Hamas,” and fear the prime minister will cave to pressure for a cease-fire. And they complain about a throttling back of military operations, which has seen the IDF move away from large-scale ground operations and air strikes to conduct more targeted missions.
Tactical transition
Senior Israeli military officials first confirmed on January 8 the tactical transition, with military spokesman Daniel Hagari saying the IDF would reduce troop numbers in the Palestinian enclave and conduct “one-off raids there instead of maintaining wide-scale maneuvers.”
Described as Phase 3 in the military campaign, officials in briefings cast the transition as necessary to give reservists some rest for the long haul in a war they say will take months, and to return others to their jobs to help the country’s ailing economy. The officials also said some troops needed to be redeployed to Israel’s tense northern border, where Hezbollah attacks have prompted Israel to threaten a ground campaign in Lebanon.
But the reasons given for the adjustment are disputed by some Likud lawmakers, including by Danny Danon, a former U.S. envoy to the U.N. He and others view the shift more than anything as an effort to placate the Biden administration and European governments anxious about the civilian death toll in Gaza. And there’s mounting talk of a possible future party leadership challenge to Netanyahu.
“We hear a lot of declarations both from the prime minister and [Defense Minister] Yoav Gallant almost every day about how we’re going to eradicate and destroy Hamas. But when you look at what’s happening now, I’m not sure it’s going in that direction,” Danon told POLITICO in an exclusive interview. “If he will not win the war, then I’m sure there will be another leader from the right that will step in because that will be the time,” he added.
Danon has twice challenged Netanyahu for the party leadership, in 2007 and 2014, but waves off a question about whether he will again seek the party’s leadership, saying merely that Likud is growing uneasy. “I speak with a lot of people and I hear them. They demand victory,” he said. “He’s being tested. Netanyahu has done a lot for Israel over the years, but he will be remembered by the way he finishes the war.”
Danon said the only acceptable conclusion to the war is “either Hamas surrenders or it is destroyed.” Military pressure is what led to the release of some hostages in December, he said. “What has happened now is that we have changed the way we are conducting the operation because of the pressure coming from the U.S.,” he added.
With opinion polls suggesting Likud has lost a third of its electoral support since October 7, Danon suggested victory could restore the party’s fortunes as well as being necessary for the security of Israel. “We need to hit Hamas so hard they will not be able to come against us anymore,” he said, adding that prime ministers, including Netanyahu have too often pulled up short before and announced Israel has been made safe and its enemies have now been deterred only for attacks to resume. “You cannot play that game anymore,” he said.
Party unease
With Likud members becoming increasingly restless, Netanyahu is more and more focusing on trying to tamp down internal party dissent. “It is all about Likud at the moment,” said a senior Israeli official, who was granted anonymity to talk about a sensitive issue. The official acknowledged that talk of a party rebellion might be premature and that Likud critics would have to calculate that an attempt to oust Netanyahu could ultimately trigger early elections that would see Likud lose badly. Nonetheless, the Israeli leader is agitated about the unease within the ranks of a party that he molded over the years in his own image, stacking it with loyalists and promoting those who share his views.
Likud disapproval partly explains Netanyahu’s strong push back last week on Washington’s readout of a phone conversation between the Israeli leader and U.S. President Joe Biden — their first since December. Israeli officials on Saturday took issue with Biden’s remarks after the call in which he said a two-state solution may still be possible even while Netanyahu is in power. Biden told reporters some “types” of two-state solution may be acceptable to the Israeli premier, even though Netanyahu has frequently ruled out the notion of establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
Netanyahu’s office reiterated his rigid opposition in a statement sent to POLITICO following Biden’s take. “In his conversation with President Biden, Prime Minister Netanyahu reiterated his policy that after Hamas is destroyed Israel must retain security control over Gaza to ensure that Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel, a requirement that contradicts the demand for Palestinian sovereignty,” his office said.
A two-state solution is anathema for the right-wing of the Likud party.
Jamie Dettmer is opinion editor at POLITICO Europe.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s brittle governing coalition isn’t anywhere near resolving its internal splits over how the Gaza Strip should be governed once Hamas has been crushed, and the situation is testing the patience of the country’s Western allies — including an increasingly exasperated United States.
Judging by an ill-tempered security Cabinet meeting last week, which was an exceptionally rowdy affair even by the rambunctious standards of Israel’s politics, Netanyahu’s coalition — widely judged as the most right-wing in the country’s history — is fraying. And the sharp differences over Gaza’s fate aren’t helping.
Ministers rounded on each other for much of the acrimonious meeting, with religious nationalists and hard-right leaders excoriating the Chief of the General Staff of the Israel Defense Forces Herzi Halevi, and taking potshots at a proposal offered by Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant.
Coming on the eve of U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s arrival in Israel, where he’ll be pressing Netanyahu to start winding down military operations in Gaza and conform to U.S. expectations on the enclave’s postwar future, the brawl was especially poorly timed. It also augurs badly for any meeting of the minds on postwar Gaza governance between Israel and Washington — let alone with Israel’s Arab neighbors.
The sharp-tongued bickering was initially sparked by Halevi disclosing he’d set up an internal army inquiry headed by former defense officials, probing the failings of Israel’s security services before the October 7 attacks by Hamas.
Led by ministers Miri Regev, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, Netanyahu’s hard-right coalition partners complained that holding an internal inquiry while fighting rages in Gaza is inappropriate and would distract from what should be the real focus — winning the war.
But their anger was largely concentrated on the inclusion of former Minister of Defense Shaul Mofaz — who oversaw the 2005 Israeli withdrawal from Gaza — in the inquiry team. They see Israel’s Gaza disengagement as the original sin that allowed Hamas to grow and become the force it has, able to launch attacks as devastating as the ones on October 7. They want the 2005 withdrawal reversed and Israel to annex part, or all, of Gaza, even discussing the possibility of Gazans “voluntarily” being resettled elsewhere — including the DR Congo.
This clash, which saw some defense officials walk out in protest, merely added fuel to the fire over Gallant’s proposal that Palestinians unaffiliated with Hamas administer the enclave after the war. Under Gallant’s plan, there would be no Israeli resettlement of Gaza — which infuriated religious nationalists like Smotrich — however, the IDF would retain military control on the borders, and have the right to mount military operations inside Gaza when deemed necessary.
“Gaza residents are Palestinian. Therefore, Palestinian bodies will be in charge, with the condition that there will be no hostile actions or threats against the State of Israel,” Gallant said last week. But for Smotrich, “Gallant’s ‘day after’ plan is a re-run of the ‘day before’ October 7.”
Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich walks with soldiers during a visit to Kibbutz Kfar Aza near the border with the Gaza Strip | Gil Cohen-Magen/AFP via Getty Images
Scorned by the government’s hard right, the defense minister’s proposal is unlikely to cut it with the U.S. or with Israel’s Arab and Gulf neighbors either, as there would be no role for the Palestinian Authority (PA), which oversees the West Bank. U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration wants Gaza to be handed over to what it calls a “revitalized” PA, although it hasn’t detailed exactly what that means or the necessary steps for such a revamp.
Netanyahu eventually broke up the Cabinet meeting after three hours of confrontational exchanges, insults and ministers swearing at each other, once again leaving Gaza’s postwar future unresolved in Israeli minds. And all this, just as the Biden administration redoubles its insistence on a serious and credible postwar plan that Arab nations can accept.
The disastrous meeting also prompted three key centrists in the wartime government — Benny Gantz, Gadi Eisenkot and Yechiel Tropper of the National Unity government’s Blue and White faction — to skip a full meeting on Sunday, highlighting the growing tensions and coalition rifts.
Tropper linked his boycott to the right-wing ministers assailing Halevi. He told national broadcaster Kan that he didn’t know “how long we will be in the government; I only know that we entered for the good of the country and our exit will also be related to the good of the country.”
Gantz, a former defense minister and onetime chief of the General Staff, had led his centrists into Netanyahu’s government after October 7 for the sake of national unity. “There is a time for peace and a time for war. Now is a time for war,” he had said when accepting Netanyahu’s offer to join the war Cabinet.
But Gantz’s popularity has risen dramatically since then, and he’s now seen as Netanyahu’s most likely challenger. So, if he chose to bolt from the government, it would increase the likelihood of an early election — and that’s something anti-Netanyahu activists are starting to demand once more. Until very recently, there was little appetite for demonstrations, with small turnouts of around just a few dozen to a few hundred people. However, rallies over the weekend saw several thousand participating, with protesters taking to the streets of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, calling for the prime minister’s removal.
So far, Netanyahu has been circumspect in outlining a postwar Gaza plan, mainly restricting himself to dismissing a role for the PA. And this has partly been due to his worry that disputes over Gaza’s postwar governance could prove fatal for his coalition. It looks like that may well turn out to be true.
Israel on Thursday slammed four international media outlets — the New York Times, CNN, the Associated Press and Reuters — over the conduct of four photojournalists in Gaza, saying they had advance knowledge of the attack by Hamas militants on October 7 that killed more than 1,400 people.
The news services strongly rejected the Israeli government’s accusation they had any forewarning of the impending murderous assault, with the New York Times saying the “outrageous” charges endangered journalists in both Israel and Gaza.
Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi accused the foreign media of employing contributors who were tipped off on the Hamas attacks. “It has come to our attention that certain individuals within your organization, including photographers and others, had prior knowledge of these horrific actions and may have maintained a troubling connection with the perpetrators,” he wrote on X.
The Israeli government’s press office director, Nitzan Chen, wrote to the four organizations’ bureau chiefs in Israel asking for clarifications regarding the behavior of four photographers amid the assault by Hamas militants.
Israel’s letter, which was seen by POLITICO, accused the photojournalists who worked with the publications of arriving at Israel’s border “alongside Hamas terrorists, documenting the murder of Israeli civilians, lynching of soldier and kidnappings to Gaza” and sought a response on the “disturbing findings” published Wednesday by a pro-Israel non-governmental organization.
Israel’s request for clarification followed a report by Honest Reporting. The most serious question posed by the NGO was whether the photographers had a heads-up that the attack was being planned so were ready on the Saturday morning in order to track the Hamas militants at close range.
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went further over the question of whether reporters should have chronicled the crimes rather than trying to stop them, saying the journalists were “accomplices in crimes against humanity.” Israeli centrist leader Benny Gantz, a member of Netanyahu’s war cabinet, said journalists who were on the scene of the massacre but “still chose to stand as idle bystanders while children were slaughtered — are no different than terrorists and should be treated as such.”
The NGO’s report said two of the four photojournalists whose names first appeared under AP’s photo credits were also working as freelancers for CNN and the New York Times. Reuters published pictures from two other photojournalists who were also at the border as Hamas’ infiltration began.
On Thursday, the Israeli government’s press office published a statement on X accusing the four photographers of crossing “every professional and moral red line” for breaking through the border fence into Israel with the militants, filming the murder of civilians, the abuse of bodies, and the abduction of men and women.
Media hit back
Later on Thursday, Reuters, AP and The New York Times issued statements denying having had any prior knowledge of the October 7 attacks.
Reuters specifically hit back at the notion that it effectively had an embedded photojournalist with Hamas. It said it acquired photos from “two Gaza-based freelance photographers who were at the border on the morning of Oct. 7,” and that the agency didn’t have a prior relationship with either of them.
“The photographs published by Reuters were taken two hours after Hamas fired rockets across southern Israel and more than 45 minutes after Israel said gunmen had crossed the border,” Reuters added, saying its staff journalists “were not on the ground at the locations referred to in the Honest Reporting article.”
AP said that it “had no knowledge of the Oct. 7 attacks before they happened. The first pictures AP received from any freelancer show they were taken more than an hour after the attacks began. No AP staff were at the border at the time of the attacks, nor did any AP staffer cross the border at any time.“
It added that the agency is “no longer working with Hassan Eslaiah,” one of the photographers named in the report, “who had been an occasional freelancer for AP and other international news organizations in Gaza.” Honest Reporting’s report has a picture of Eslaiah smiling as he is kissed by Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.
The New York Times described the accusations as “untrue” and “outrageous,” as they put “journalists on the ground in Israel and Gaza at risk.” It also criticized Honest Reporting for making “vague allegations against several freelance photojournalists working in Gaza, including Yousef Masoud,” clarifying that Masoud “was not working for The Times on the day of the attack,” but had done “important work” for the publication.
CNN has not issued any statement on the report. It was, however, cited by the Israeli Ynet network saying that it had cut ties with Eslaiah.
“We are aware of the article and photo concerning Hassan Eslaiah, a freelance photojournalist who has worked with a number of international and Israeli outlets,” a CNN spokesperson was quoted as saying by Ynet. “While we have not at this time found reason to doubt the journalistic accuracy of the work he has done for us, we have decided to suspend all ties with him.”
TEL AVIV — Benjamin Netanyahu scrambled to quell a revolt by religious nationalists and settler leaders within his increasingly unruly governing coalition demanding he reverse a decision to let two fuel trucks per day enter Gaza — a concession the Israeli prime minister made amid growing U.S. and international pressure.
Rebellious coalition partners demanded to have more say over the conduct of the war after Netanyahu’s decision was announced Friday. They argued there should be no delivery of fuel, however limited, to the Palestinian coastal enclave — or any other humanitarian concessions — until Hamas frees the 240 Israeli hostages the group seized on October 7, when gunmen launched an attack on southern Israel, killing at least 1,200 people, Israeli officials say.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right settler leader, insisted the war cabinet be expanded from three people, including Netanyahu, so that all seven parties in the coalition government have a seat. Smotrich said allowing fuel in “is a grave mistake.”
In recent weeks, as Western allies attempt to persuade Netanyahu to restrain Israeli military action — which has killed nearly 11,500 Palestinians in 42 days, according to separate counts by both the Palestinian Authority and the Hamas-run government in Gaza, a number which some Israeli officials dispute — he has to contend with coalition partners who are set against conceding.
The religious nationalists and settler leaders also were critical of his decision last week, made again after arm-twisting by the Biden administration, to pause for a few hours daily its aerial bombardment and ground operations to allow Palestinians to flee south from the most intense fighting in northern Gaza.
The eruption within the coalition government over the fuel concession illustrates the dilemma Netanyahu faces in trying to balance far-right religious nationalists in his government and Israel’s Western allies, who are increasingly pressing him to ease the plight of Gaza civilians. The majority of Palestinians in Gaza, which has been under air, land and sea blockade by Israel since 2007 — when Hamas wrested power over the Strip from Fatah — relied heavily on humanitarian aid before the war, including fuel to clean water, operate sewage systems and power now-shut-off telecommunications. Egypt has upheld a blockade on its border crossing at Rafah with Gaza since 2007.
Israeli officials say the decision to let in small amounts of fuel daily, a fraction of the fuel allowed before the war, was allowed as a gesture to Western allies and to avoid a breakdown of Gaza’s sewage and water systems, which would risk spreading disease, impacting civilians and Israeli troops.
“If plague were to break out, we’d have to stop the war,” National Security Council chairman Tzachi Hanegbi told reporters Friday.
But Itamar Ben Gvir, the minister overseeing Israel’s police, dismissed that argument, saying “so long as our hostages don’t even get a visit from the Red Cross, there’s no sense in giving the enemy humanitarian gifts.” Permitting fuel, he said, “broadcasts weakness, gives oxygen to the enemy and allows [Hamas Gaza leader Yahya] Sinwar to sit comfortably in his air-conditioned bunker, watch the news and continue to manipulate Israeli society and the families of the abductees.”
Scrounging for fuel
Israel cut off all fuel deliveries to Gaza at the start of the war, forcing the enclave’s only power plant to shut down, and it has been highly reluctant to allow fuel into Gaza, claiming it could be used to keep generators working to pump oxygen into Hamas’ huge network of tunnels. “For air, they need oil. For oil, they need us,” Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defense minister, said as the war commenced.
But civilians need fuel as well. Gaza hospitals have been scrounging to find fuel to run their generators to power incubators and other life-saving equipment. And the U.N. has been urging fuel deliveries. Midweek, Israel allowed in a small amount to keep United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) aid delivery trucks operating.
Netanyahu has agreed to no more than 140,000 liters being transported every two days into Gaza.
An official in the prime minister’s office told POLITICO: “60,000 liters of fuel (about two trucks) were approved, which is about 3.5 percent of the amount that came in before the war, in order to prevent a humanitarian crisis and enable the continued destruction of Hamas-ISIS. It will prevent the sewage system from collapsing. The long-term policy will be discussed tonight in the cabinet.”
President Biden asked Netanyahu for a “pause longer than three days” to allow for negotiations over the release of some hostages held by Hamas | Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP via Getty Images
President Joe Biden expressed frustration last week about how long it took to get Israel to agree on brief humanitarian pauses. He had asked the Israeli leader not only for daily pauses but also for a “pause longer than three days” to allow for negotiations over the release of some hostages held by Hamas. On the latter he has so far been rebuffed but on the former, he said it had “taken a little longer than I hoped.”
Netanyahu has struggled to keep his rambunctious far-right coalition partners in line. Last week he urged ministers to pipe down and “be careful with their words” when they talk about the war on Hamas. “Every word has meaning when it comes to diplomacy,” the prime minister said at a full cabinet meeting. “We must be sensitive,” he added, saying speaking out of turn harms Israel’s international legitimacy.
His warning came after his agriculture minister, Avi Dichter, envisaged the displacement of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip becoming a permanent uprooting. He dubbed it the “Gaza Nakba of 2023,” a reference to the expulsion of thousands of Palestinians during the Arab-Israeli war in 1948, known as the nakba (“catastrophe” in Arabic). “That’s how it’ll end,” Dichter said during a television interview.
Just days earlier, Amihai Eliyahu, the heritage minister, prompted an outcry in Israel and abroad when he suggested one option in the war could be to drop a nuclear bomb on Gaza. Netanyahu quickly disavowed the comment, and then suspended Eliyahu from cabinet meetings.
And on Thursday, before the coalition eruption over Netanyahu’s backtracking on previous pledges not to allow a drop of fuel to enter Gaza, Ben Gvir said the West Bank should be flattened like Gaza following an attack by Hamas gunmen on a checkpoint south of Jerusalem.
“We need to deal with Hamas in the West Bank, and the Palestinian Authority which has similar views to Hamas and its heads identified with Hamas’ massacre, exactly like we are dealing with Gaza,” Ben Gvir said.
Netanyahu’s coalition partners are unlikely though to walk out of the government. None of the seven parties will want to set in motion the circumstances for a snap election. A poll Friday found that the Netanyahu-led coalition would be roundly beaten if elections for the Knesset were held today.
The Israeli prime minister isn’t getting any boost from the war, unlike Benny Gantz, a retired general and one of the leaders of the center-right National Unity party. He agreed to serve in the war cabinet for the duration of the fight, despite personal and political differences with Netanyahu. When asked who they would prefer as prime minister, 41 percent of respondents said Gantz; only 25 percent said Netanyahu.
Israeli officials have just announced the formation of a five-member war management cabinet as the country continues to battle Hamas militants. Among the cabinet’s members are Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister and military chief of staff Benny Gantz. CBS News’ Haley Ott has more.
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