Courtesy of Wikipedia
Benny Gantz (June 9, 1959) is an Israeli politician and retired army general. He served as a minister without portfolio from 2023 to 2024, as the minister of defense between 2020 and 2022, and as deputy prime minister between 2021 and 2022. From 2020 to 2021, he was the alternate prime minister.
He served as the 20th Chief of General Staff of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) 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 (Hebrew: Kaḥol Lavan), 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 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.
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