Israel sets new war goal of returning residents to Lebanon border

Israel has added the safe return of its citizens to their homes near the border with Lebanon to its formal war goals, as it considers a wider military operation in Lebanon that could ignite an all-out conflict.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu 's office said he laid out the war aim in a security cabinet meeting.

Tens of thousands of people have been displaced from towns and villages on both sides of the border by near-daily exchanges of fire between Israeli forces and the Lebanese Hezbollah.

Iran-backed Hezbollah opened a second front against Israel a day after the war in the Gaza Strip began, triggered by a Hamas attack inside Israel on 7 October. Hamas, also backed by Tehran, killed around 1,200 people, with another 250 taken hostage. In response, Israel has bombarded Gaza from the air and ground. More than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in the offensive, health officials in the strip have said. It has also displaced nearly 90 per cent of the territory’s 2.3 million population, many multiple times.

"The Security Cabinet has updated the objectives of the war to include the following: Returning the residents of the north securely to their homes. Israel will continue to act to implement this objective," a statement from Mr Netanyahu's office said.

Israel has said it prefers a diplomatic solution that would see Hezbollah moved farther back from the border.

However, Hezbollah, which also says it wants to avoid all-out conflict, says that only an end to the war in Gaza will stop the fighting. Gaza ceasefire efforts are deadlocked after months of faltering talks mediated by Qatar, Egypt and the United States.

Soon after the security cabinet meeting ended, Israel's leading television channels and news websites reported that Netanyahu, under pressure from far-right coalition partners, was contemplating firing his defence minister, Yoav Gallant, and replacing him with a former ally turned rival, Gideon Saar, who is currently a member of the opposition.

Mr Saar, a former justice minister, has been critical of the government's war policies over the past few months, saying it should take the initiative more and take decisive action against Israel's enemies, including Iran.

Mr Saar has been critical about making a deal with Hamas to end the Gaza conflict, while Gallant has been pushing for a truce that would include swapping Israeli hostages in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners.

Mr Netanyahu would be strengthening his political position by adding Mr Saar's four-seat faction to his coalition as he would be less reliant on each one of his other partners.

It could also ease two political headaches for Mr Netanyahu, passing a state budget and a new conscription law that would be acceptable to his ultra-Orthodox coalition partners who want to keep religious Jewish seminary students out of the military.

Mr Netanyahu denied that he was in negotiations with Mr Saar, though he did not refer to his plans for Mr Gallant. Mr Saar denied that he was negotiating with some members of the coalition.

In his role as defence minister, Mr Gallant has often taken an independent line against Mr Netanyahu.

He has dismissed Mr Netanyahu's repeated aim of "total victory" in Gaza as nonsense. Mr Gallant has also called for a clearer post war plan that would see the enclave governed by Palestinians.

Last year, during protests over a drive by Mr Netanyahu to curb the Supreme Court's powers, Mr Gallant broke ranks and spoke out against a plan which he said was causing such deep social divisions that it endangered national security.

Mr Netanyahu sacked him, but backtracked when Israelis took to the streets in one of the largest demonstrations in the country's history.

In response to the reports about Mr Gallant, Israel's Business Forum urged Mr Netanyahu to keep Mr Gallant, saying removing him would create more division and weaken the country after reports of an imminent political shake-up rattled the country.

The forum, which consists of 200 heads of Israel's largest companies that employ many private sector workers, said Mr Netanyahu should stop "messing around with petty politics" during a war.

"Immediately stop the process of replacing [Mr Gallant]," the forum said in a statement. "The firing of the minister weakens Israel in the eyes of her enemies, and will further deepen the division in the people of Israel."

"The prime minister knows better than anyone that all the economic indicators also prove that Israel is deteriorating into an economic abyss and sinking into a deep recession," the forum said. "The last thing Israel needs at this time is the firing of a defence minister - which will continue to shock the country."

Reuters