Political tension in Israel over the conduct of the country’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip spilled out into public view again Monday. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu disbanded an influential group that had, since Hamas launched its Oct. 7 terrorist attack and sparked the war, helped to set Israel’s war policy. Netanyahu dissolved the war cabinet, a coalition of political rivals created after the Hamas attack to both sow and show unity at the top level of the Israeli government during the conflict.

That unity collapsed last week when Benny Gantz, Netanyahu’s leading moderate opponent, resigned from his position in the government and the war cabinet over what he had said was a failure to present any plan to govern Gaza following the war.The now-dissolved war cabinet was also formed to bypass some far-right ministers in the wider cabinet, and many people inside and outside Israel feared Netanyahu would lurch toward the far-right in the wake of Gantz’s move. Netanyahu formed his current coalition government — Israel’s most extreme right-wing cabinet ever — with members of far-right Israeli parties who remain in key posts, and those figures are the linchpin of his ongoing ability to govern effectively, and even to keep his job.

Officials with Netanyahu’s Likud party said Monday that the prime minister was forming a new small group with whom to consult on war-time decisions. Sources indicated that the extreme far-right government ministers still would not participate in the day-to-day running of the war, but major policy decisions related to the conflict will still be taken by the wider Israeli security cabinet, which includes the far-right members.