Yoav Gallant

Yoav Gallant (; born 8 November 1958) is an Israeli politician and former military officer who served as minister of defense between 2022 and 2024. Gallant was an officer in the Southern Command of the Israel Defense Forces, serving in the Israeli Navy. In January 2015, he entered politics, joining the new Kulanu party. After being elected to the Knesset he was appointed minister of construction. At the end of 2018 he joined Likud, shortly after which he became minister of Aliyah and Integration. In 2020 he was appointed minister of education, and the following year became minister of defense. On 5 November 2024, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that he had dismissed Gallant, effective 7 November, and sought to have Israel Katz replace him. Gallant subsequently resigned from the Knesset on 5 January 2025.

On 21 November 2024, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Gallant, along with Netanyahu and three Hamas leaders, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the Gaza war.

Biography Yoav Gallant was born on 8 November 1958 in Jaffa to Polish Jewish immigrants. His mother, Fruma, was a Holocaust survivor who had been on the SS Exodus as a child. Along with other Exodus refugees, she was deported by the British to Hamburg, and arrived in Israel in 1948. She was a nurse by profession. His father, Michael, fought the Nazis as a partisan in the forests of Ukraine and Belarus, and also immigrated to Israel in 1948. He served in the Givati Brigade in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, including the Samson's Foxes unit, and was considered one of the finest snipers in the IDF. He participated in Operation Yoav, during which he was the first soldier to break into the fort at Iraq Suwaydan. He named his son for the operation. He then returned to the navy and served on a missile boat (including a position as deputy-commander of INS Keshet)

Israeli NGO Yesh Gvul filed suit against Gallant's appointment as IDF chief of staff, claiming that his command role in Cast Lead confirmed him as a suspect in "grave violations of international law." Haaretz noted that Gallant lobbied against an investigation of Col. Ilan Malka, the IDF commander who approved the airstrike that killed 21 members of the al-Samouni clan during Cast Lead. Gallant's view was ignored as the military prosecutor general opened an investigation of the incident which was highlighted by the Goldstone Report as a "possible serious breach of international law".

Chief of Staff candidacy On 22 August 2010 Minister of Defense Ehud Barak presented the candidacy of Gallant for the post of the IDF's twentieth chief of staff to the government.

Likud On 31 December 2018, Gallant quit his post as Housing and Construction Minister to join Likud. A day later he was appointed Minister of Aliyah and Integration. He resigned from the Knesset and was replaced by the next candidate on the Kulanu list, Fentahun Seyoum on 2 January 2019. thumb

After the formation of the Thirty-fifth government of Israel Gallant was appointed minister of education.

On 17 January 2021, reacting to a planned speech by the director-general of B'Tselem Hagai El-Ad at the Hebrew Reali School, Gallant, serving as the minister of education, published a directive to the Education Ministry to forbid all organizations whose causes contradict the Ministry's vision of the country as democratic, Jewish and Zionist, from entering schools.

Specifically, Gallant wrote that any organization which cites Israel as an "apartheid state", shall be forbidden from entering education centers in Israel.

In 2021, as minister of education, Gallant opposed Weizmann Institute professor Oded Goldreich receiving the Israel Prize in mathematics, due to him co-signing a 2019 letter that called for the Bundestag not to pass legislation defining the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement as anti-Semitic. On 8 April 2021 Israel's Supreme Court of Justice ruled in favor of Gallant's petition so that Goldreich could not receive the prize and gave Gallant a month to further examine the issue. In March 2022 the High Court of Israel ruled that the 2021 prize had to be awarded to Prof. Goldreich.

Judicial reform On 25 March 2023, Gallant spoke out against his own government in support of the protests against the government's proposed judicial reforms. He asked for the government to delay the proposed legislation to allow for negotiations between the ruling coalition and the opposition, which resulted in National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir calling for Gallant's dismissal. Netanyahu announced on 26 March that he was dismissing Gallant, sparking massive protests that night in several major cities across Israel. That night is known as 'Gallant Night' in Israel, possibly as an allusion to the phrase, 'gallant knight'. The following day, Gallant's office stated that he would be continuing in his post, as he had not yet been given an official notice of his dismissal. On 10 April, Netanyahu announced that he would not dismiss Gallant.

Minister of Defense On 8 August 2023, Gallant warned that Israel would not hesitate to attack Hezbollah and "return Lebanon to the Stone Age" if Israel was attacked.

On 9 October 2023, following the beginning of the Gaza war and attacks in Israel by Hamas militants, Gallant said he had "ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly".

On 13 October 2023, Gallant met with US secretary of defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant called on Palestinians to evacuate northern Gaza, including Gaza City, saying: "The camouflage of the terrorists is the civilian population. Therefore, we need to separate them. So those who want to save their lives, please go south. We are going to destroy Hamas infrastructure, Hamas headquarters, Hamas military establishment, and take these phenomena out of Gaza and out of the Earth." On 13 October, he said that "Gaza won't return to what it was before. Hamas won't be there. We will eliminate everything." Gallant said he had "released all restraints" as he addressed Israeli troops on the border with the Gaza Strip.

In November 2023, Gallant warned that Beirut could meet the same fate as Gaza. He made the same warning in January 2024, saying that allowing Hezbollah and Iran to "decide how we live our lives here in Israel" is "something we don't accept."

During South Africa's submission to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that Israel was committing genocide against the Palestinians, the president of the ICJ cited Gallant for using the phrase "human animals" in reference to Palestinians. Gallant described South Africa's submission as antisemitic.

On 25 March 2024, after the UN Security Council adopted a resolution calling for a ceasefire in the Gaza war, Gallant said that Israel has "no moral right to stop the war in Gaza." On 14 April 2024, Gallant thanked Lloyd Austin and the entire U.S. Administration for "standing boldly" with Israel.

On 15 May 2024, during the Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip, Gallant convened a press conference in which he criticized Netanyahu for rejecting dealing with the question of "the day after" in the Gaza Strip. The defense minister called on the prime minister to announce that Israel will not control Gaza, and expressed his opposition to a military government in the Strip.

On 20 May 2024, an arrest warrant for Gallant, as well as for other Israeli and Hamas leaders, was requested by the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Karim Khan as part of the ICC investigation in Palestine, on several counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Gaza war. On 20 September 2024, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced it was challenging the ICC jurisdiction and the legality of the arrest warrants. On 21 November, the ICC Trial Chamber unanimously rejected Israel's request and indicted Gallant.

On 8 June 2024, the Israeli military rescued four hostages in a special operation in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza. Gallant called the rescue operation "one of the most heroic and extraordinary operations" that he had "witnessed over the course of 47 years serving in Israel's defense establishment."

In June 2024 he visited the United States, where he sought to gain support for an escalation of the war with Hezbollah and a possible ground invasion in Lebanon.

Following the 2024 Lebanon electronic device attacks, Gallant announced a "new phase" of the war in northern Israel and Lebanon had begun. Just before the blasts, Gallant told the US defense secretary Lloyd Austin that an operation was planned in Lebanon.

On 5 November 2024, Netanyahu announced that he had dismissed Gallant and sought to have Israel Katz replace him. Gallant said that his sacking was caused by his desire to see the quick return of Israeli hostages in Gaza and an inquiry into the 7 October attacks, whereas Netanyahu simply attributed it to a lack of trust between the two. Protests against his firing broke out, with many calling for a continuation of the previous protests, known as Gallant Night.

On 21 November 2024, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Gallant, Netanyahu, and Hamas leaders Mohammed Deif, Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar (the latter three of whom were dead by that time) for alleged war crimes committed during the Gaza war. One of the key allegations against Gallant and Netanyahu was the "use of starvation as a weapon of war". The use of starvation as weapon of war is banned by the United Nations. A few weeks before that the arrest warrants were issued, there were also reports of looting occurring in areas controlled by the IDF.

Retirement Gallant announced his intention to resign from the Knesset on 1 January 2025 in opposition to the government's proposed draft law. His resignation went into effect on 5 January, and he was replaced in the Knesset by Afif Abed.

In February 2025, Gallant admitted that he issued the Hannibal Directive during the 7 October attacks. In an interview with Channel 12, he confirmed of giving the order in certain areas. He also insisted on launching a military offensive in Gaza despite warnings that such an attack could endanger the Israeli hostages held there. He stated, “I think that, tactically, in some places, it was given, and in other places, it was not given, and that is a problem."

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