Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed his defense minister on Monday, exposing deep rifts within the Israeli government as the Middle East entered a high-wire week, suspended between the prospect of a wider regional conflict and intensive diplomatic efforts to prevent one.
Mr. Netanyahu criticized the defense minister, Yoav Gallant, after Israeli news media reported that Mr. Gallant had disparaged his goal of achieving a “total victory” over Hamas in the Gaza Strip by telling lawmakers in a private security briefing on Monday that it was “nonsense.”
“When Gallant adopts the anti-Israel narrative, he harms the chances of reaching a hostage-release deal,” the prime minister’s office said in a statement. Victory over Hamas and the release of hostages, the statement said, is the “clear directive of Prime Minister Netanyahu and the cabinet, and it obligates everyone — including Gallant.”
The public scolding came as the Middle East braced for a possible escalation in violence and the United States continued its military buildup in the region, dispatching the guided-missile submarine Georgia there.
Iran and its most powerful regional proxy, Hezbollah in Lebanon, have vowed to retaliate for the killings nearly two weeks ago of Hamas’s political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in an explosion in Tehran and of a senior Hezbollah commander, Fuad Shukr, in an Israeli airstrike in the southern suburbs of Beirut.
Iran has blamed Israel for the death of Mr. Haniyeh, who was in Iran to attend the inauguration of its new president. Israel has not confirmed or denied if it was behind the attack, although U.S. officials have privately assessed that it was.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has promised to deliver a “severe punishment” for the assassination on Iranian soil. Mr. Netanyahu has vowed, in turn, to “exact a heavy price for any act of aggression against us, from whatever quarter.”
At a news conference clearly intended to reassure a jittery Israeli public, the chief spokesman for Israel’s military, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said, “We are prepared at peak readiness in offense and defense, and we will act according to the directives of the government.”
On Monday, John F. Kirby, a national security spokesman at the White House, told reporters that President Biden had spoken to European leaders about the tensions in the region. Mr. Kirby said the United States agreed with Israel’s assessment that an attack by Iran and its proxies could happen “as soon as this week.”
He said that the White House still expected Gaza cease-fire talks to resume on Thursday, though he conceded that an Iranian attack could derail those plans. “We fully expect that to move forward, and they need to move forward,” Mr. Kirby said.
Mr. Biden, along with the leaders of Egypt and Qatar, said last week that they were prepared to present a “final” proposal for a cease-fire in Gaza at the meeting. On Monday, the White House released a joint statement from Mr. Biden and the leaders of Britain, France, Germany and Italy endorsing the effort to broker a cease-fire on Thursday, saying, “There is no further time to lose.”
The leaders also “called on Iran to stand down its ongoing threats of a military attack against Israel.”
Several senior Biden administration officials are fanning out across the Middle East this week to make a full-court press to nail down a Gaza cease-fire deal and, possibly, to try to avert an attack by Iran or its proxies against Israel, U.S. officials said late Monday.
The officials being dispatched include William J. Burns, the C.I.A. director, who is traveling to Qatar; Brett McGurk, Mr. Biden’s Middle East coordinator, who is heading to Egypt and Qatar; and Amos Hochstein, a senior White House adviser, who is visiting Lebanon.
Mr. Netanyahu’s office has said that Israel would send a negotiating team to the meeting, which is expected to take place in Cairo or the Qatari capital, Doha. It was unclear whether Hamas would take part in the talks. In a statement on Sunday, Hamas suggested it was not interested in participating, saying it had already agreed to a framework for a cease-fire.
In the absence of a truce, the Israeli military pressed ahead with its offensive, ordering civilians on Sunday to evacuate part of a designated safe zone it had established in southwestern Gaza, as it prepared to attack what it said was “embedded terrorist infrastructure” there. Israel’s military said it was urging civilians to move to other areas it said were safe.
But nowhere in Gaza is safe, many Palestinians say, and even the areas designated by the Israeli military as humanitarian zones lack basic necessities.
“The truth is that this area is anything but humanitarian,” said Kamel Mohammed, 36, who was sheltering in a tent with nine relatives in a coastal strip of Gaza known as Al-Mawasi.
“We do not have the means for a decent life,” Mr. Mohammed said. “No drinkable water, no healthy food, and we have resorted to building primitive bathrooms.”
Facing international condemnation for an airstrike on Saturday that hit a school compound used to shelter Palestinians in northern Gaza, Israel on Monday said that the strike had killed 31 militants. According to Gaza’s health officials, more than 100 Palestinians were killed; the Gazan tallies do not distinguish between combatants and civilians.
With the Middle East on edge, the American defense secretary, Lloyd J. Austin III, spoke to Mr. Gallant on Sunday and “reiterated the United States’ commitment to take every possible step to defend Israel,” according to the Pentagon press secretary, Maj. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder.
General Ryder also made the unusual disclosure that the submarine Georgia had been sent to the Middle East. The Pentagon rarely announces the movements of its submarine fleet, and the disclosure underscored the seriousness of the crisis. The Georgia can fire cruise missiles and carry teams of Navy SEAL commandos.
General Ryder noted that Mr. Austin had already ordered additional combat aircraft and warships capable of shooting down missiles and drones to the region. Mr. Austin has also directed the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, equipped with F-35 fighter jets, to accelerate its arrival in the region, joining the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt and its accompanying warships already in the Gulf of Oman.
The Lincoln is expected to arrive in the next several days, and could overlap with the Roosevelt for at least a couple of weeks, doubling the carrier firepower in the region.
“Are we trying to send a message? Absolutely,” General Ryder told reporters on Monday. “We’re looking to de-escalate tensions.”
Mr. Netanyahu’s dress-down of Mr. Gallant reflected longstanding divisions in his right-wing government over the prosecution of the war in Gaza and the fate of the approximately 115 hostages still in Gaza, an unknown number of whom have died.
Mr. Gallant, a member of Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud party, has clashed with the prime minister before.
Last year, he called on Mr. Netanyahu’s government to suspend a proposal to overhaul the Israeli judiciary after it led to widespread protests. And in May, Mr. Gallant said the lack of a postwar plan for governing Gaza could force Israel into a permanent occupation, costing it “in blood and many victims, for no purpose.”
In a statement on Monday, Mr. Gallant did not confirm or deny whether he had dismissed as “nonsense” the prime minister’s goal of “total victory” over Hamas. An Israeli lawmaker who attended Mr. Gallant’s security briefing confirmed, however, that the defense minister had used the term.
“During a security briefing I gave today to the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee,” Mr. Gallant said in the statement, “I emphasized I was determined to achieve the war’s goals and continue fighting until Hamas is dismantled and the hostages are returned.”
Despite Mr. Netanyahu’s rebuke of Mr. Gallant, he was not planning to fire him as defense minister, according to an Israeli official who spoke on the condition of anonymity and was not authorized to communicate with reporters.
Reporting was contributed by Hiba Yazbek, Ameera Harouda, Abu Bakr Bashir, Patrick Kingsley, Julian Barnes, Adam Entous and Michael D. Shear.
