Expanding Israel’s coalition government will help advance a hostages-for-ceasefire deal with Hamas, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday amid reports that he is considering replacing Defense Minister Yoav Gallant with New Hope Party leader Gideon Sa’ar.
Netanyahu made his remarks—the first since reports emerged of talks with Sa’ar—in conversation with close advisers, local media reported.
The Prime Minister’s Office denied talks with Sa’ar, while a New Hope Party spokesperson claimed that there was “nothing new” to report.
Earlier on Monday, Israel’s Kan News cited a source in the PMO as saying that Netanyahu was preparing to fire Gallant in the “immediate future.” According to the report, Netanyahu’s associates were holding talks with Sa’ar, who left the emergency wartime government for the opposition in late March, to replace the defense minister.
Israel Hayom reported that Foreign Minister Israel Katz and Energy Minister Eli Cohen both turned down offers to replace Gallant, leaving Sa’ar as the only candidate for the position.
According to a report by Israel’s Channel 12, Netanyahu also offered lawmakers of the New Hope Party reserved spots on the slate of his ruling Likud Party in a future election in exchange for Sa’ar backing the coalition until the end of the government’s full term in October 2026.
The terms under discussion reportedly include New Hope Party Knesset member Ze’ev Elkin being appointed as a minister in charge of the north and south, while Knesset member Sharren Haskel would be made a deputy minister.
Netanyahu and Gallant have been at odds since the 2023 judicial reform crisis. In May of last year, while Netanyahu was abroad, Gallant called a solo press conference and urged the prime minister to halt the judicial reform legislation amid massive street protests throughout Israel.
Some 24 hours later, Netanyahu announced his intention to fire Gallant. Nationwide protests against the government’s judicial reform agenda intensified, and the prime minister was forced to reverse his decision.
Four months ago, Netanyahu and other members of his coalition slammed Gallant after he demanded that Jerusalem commit to Palestinian control over the Gaza Strip post-war with Hamas.
Earlier this month, after news broke that the Israel Defense Forces found the bodies of six hostages in a Hamas tunnel in southern Gaza, Gallant demanded that Netanyahu renege on a decision to keep IDF troops on the enclave’s border with Egypt, also known as the Philadelphi Corridor.
The majority of Likud voters have lost faith in Gallant and would like to see him fired, according to a JNS/Direct Polls survey carried out in July.
The news of Gallant’s possible dismissal was welcomed by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who noted on Monday that he had been calling on Netanyahu to fire his defense minister for months. “The time has come to do so immediately. A decision must be made in the north, and Gallant is not the right man to lead it,” tweeted Ben-Gvir.
Cohen told Kan News, “I do not confirm that there are negotiations—I confirm and support expanding the coalition and creating unity.”
Sa’ar announced his decision to quit the unity government on March 25, two weeks after breaking up his alliance with Benny Gantz’s National Unity Party and demanding a spot on the now-dissolved War Cabinet.
The New Hope Party leader stated he had “prioritized the establishment of the emergency government” in the wake of Hamas’s Oct. 7 cross-border massacre, before adding, “In retrospect, maybe I was wrong about that.”
At the time, Sa’ar blamed the government for what he described as a failure to accomplish its war goals and said the military campaign against Hamas had been managed “contrary to the national interest.”