Cracks widen in Netanyahu’s government as top political rival heads to US talks

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s popularity has plummeted (Ohad Zwigenberg/AP)

A top Israeli cabinet minister is heading to Washington for talks with US officials, sparking a rebuke from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a sign of widening cracks in his wartime government nearly five months into the war with Hamas.

The trip by Benny Gantz, a centrist political rival who joined Mr Netanyahu’s hard-line government in the early days of the war following Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel, comes amid deep disagreements between Mr Netanyahu and US President Joe Biden over how to alleviate the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza and create a post-war vision for the enclave.