Benjamin "Benny" Gantz is an Israeli politician and retired army general who has served as Minister without portfolio since 2023. Gantz also served as the Minister of Defense, between 2020 and 2022 and as deputy prime minister of Israel between 2021 and 2022. From 2020 to 2021, he was the alternate prime minister of Israel.
He served as the 20th chief of General Staff of the Israel Defense Forces from 2011 to 2015. In December 2018, he entered politics by establishing a new political party named Israel Resilience. The party later allied itself with Telem and Yesh Atid to form Blue and White , the colours of the Israeli national flag. In 2022, Gantz became the leader of National Unity, made up of the Israel Resilience Party and New Hope.
Gantz was the 17th Speaker of the Knesset from 26 March 2020 to 17 May 2020. On 20 April 2020, Gantz agreed to join a rotation government with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Under the terms of the agreement, Gantz was to serve as Alternate Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, before succeeding Netanyahu as Prime Minister of Israel in November 2021. However, the coalition collapsed, resulting in another election in 2021. As defense minister, Gantz was in charge of Operation Guardian of the Walls in Gaza. In June 2021, he was reappointed Defense Minister and became Deputy Prime Minister in the new Bennett-Lapid government, serving in those roles until December 2022.
On 12 October 2023, following the breakout of the 2023 Israel–Hamas war, the National Unity Party announced that it would form an Israeli war cabinet with Likud. Gantz was appointed as a Minister without portfolio in the Thirty-seventh government, led by Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu.
Wikipedia
Source: Benny Gantz (2021) cited in " Israel’s politicians promise to apprehend West Bank gunmen https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/israel/politics/1639719263-israel-s-politicians-promise-to-apprehend-west-bank-gunmen" on i24 News, 17 December 2021.
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