Sa'ar, leader of the "New Hope" party, was one of the strongest advocates for Netanyahu's removal (Getty)
Israeli Minister Gideon Sa'ar announced yesterday evening, Tuesday, the dissolution of his political partnership with Minister in the War Council, Benny Gantz, and the dissolution of the "State Camp Alliance," calling for joining the War Council as an independent bloc.
Sa'ar, the leader of the "New Hope" party, had joined the state camp coalition led by Benny Gantz - who leads the "Blue and White" party - in the last rounds of elections, and was one of the strongest calls for the removal of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from the presidency of the government in light of the corruption files persecuting him. .
Sa'ar said at a conference of his party's activists in Tel Aviv yesterday, Tuesday, "I respect my two friends, the representatives of the state camp in the war council (Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot), but unfortunately they do not express the positions that I was going to present there."
He added, "Therefore, on your behalf, I express here our demand to join the war council, and to be part of influencing policy," according to Haaretz newspaper.
Sa'ar added that his party decided to end the partnership with the "Blue and White" party, and that they approached the Chairman of the Knesset Committee, Ofir Katz, to transform the "Jedi Hope" party into an independent parliamentary bloc.
Sa'ar is a minister without portfolio in the "National Unity" government that was formed after the outbreak of the devastating Israeli war on the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023.
Speaking about the reasons for his decision, Sa'ar criticized the policy followed by the war council government in recent months towards Gaza, stressing that "we must not ease military pressure or slow progress in destroying Hamas's forces and its rule."
With the end of the partnership between the two parties, the state camp collapsed, and Sa'ar left his party's four seats, leaving Gantz's party with 8 seats.
Gantz responded briefly to Sa'ar's move, saying on the X platform, "Thank you, and good luck."
Recently, Sa'ar - who previously defected from Netanyahu's Likud Party - criticized Gantz's visit to Washington and London without obtaining permission from Netanyahu.
The dissolution of the partnership between Saar and Gantz comes at a time when Israel is waging a war on Gaza that has left tens of thousands of civilian casualties - most of them children and women - and massive destruction and famine that has begun to claim the lives of children and the elderly, according to Palestinian and UN sources.
In this context, Israeli Channel 13 reported that National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir requested to join the war council if Netanyahu agreed to include Gideon Saar.
An opinion poll conducted for the Israeli Channel 12 showed that the State Camp party - in the event of early elections - will triple its seats in the Knesset and will obtain 35 seats out of 120, while the ruling Likud Party led by Netanyahu will lose about half of its seats and will obtain only 19 seats. .
Israel insists on continuing the war despite its first appearance since its establishment in 1948 before the International Court of Justice on charges of committing genocide against the Palestinians.
Source: Al Jazeera + Anatolia