Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, and Benny Gantz, the head of the centrist opposition, have decided to establish an emergency unity government.
Former military chief of staff and defense minister Gantz and Netanyahu decided to form a war cabinet with Gantz and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, according to a joint statement released on Wednesday by Gantz’s National Unity party.
According to the statement, the unity government will only support laws and policies directly relevant to the ongoing conflict between Hamas and Israel.
What would happen to Netanyahu’s current allies in government, a group of far-right and ultra-Orthodox parties, was not immediately apparent.
Gadi Eizenkot, the former chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, and Ron Dermer, the minister of strategic affairs, are expected to watch.
The Netanyahu administration’s attempts to ram through planned changes to the nation’s judiciary have been the source of internal political unrest in Israel for the past few months. Opponents have referred to these efforts as a “judicial coup” intended to seize control of the judiciary.
In reaction to what they defend as a series of justifiable changes, Netanyahu and his allies have accused a large-scale protest movement that has gone to the streets over the last several months of jeopardizing national cohesion.
Following an unprecedented onslaught into southern Israel by the armed Palestinian organization Hamas, which has murdered at least 1,200 Israelis, many of them civilians, and shattered the faith of the nation, Israel has announced that it will be stepping up its attacks on Gaza.
Israeli leaders have promised a brutal response, denying the 2.3 million Palestinians living in the restricted Gaza Strip—where a blockade imposed by Israel in 2007 has worsened humanitarian conditions—access to electricity, fuel, and water.
According to human rights organizations, denying basic essentials to an occupied population is a war crime.
Palestinian officials claim that at least 1,055 people have died and 5,184 have been injured due to Israeli airstrikes on Gaza.