Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fired Defence Minister Yoav Gallant on Tuesday, citing a “crisis of trust”, and replaced him with close ally Israel Katz to lead the country’s war in Gaza and Lebanon.

Netanyahu’s critics accused him of putting politics ahead of national security at a time when Israel is bracing for Iranian retaliation to its [USN:L1N3M60ET TEXT:“Oct. 26 airstrikes”] on the Islamic Republic.

After Gallant was fired, protesters in Israel blocked highways and lit bonfires on roads, police said.

The prime minister named Gideon Saar as the new foreign minister in place of Katz.

Gallant and Netanyahu, both in the right-wing Likud party, have [USN:L1N3MC0YJ TEXT:“clashed for months”] over the objectives of Israel’s 13-month-old war in Gaza against Palestinian militant group Hamas. But the timing of Gallant’s dismissal was a surprise, and came as Israel’s ally the U.S. held its presidential election.

Israel’s campaigns in Gaza and Lebanon have entered new phases following the killing of top commanders in both Hamas and Lebanese armed group Hezbollah.

Netanyahu said Gallant has made statements that “contradict the decisions of the government and the decisions of the cabinet”. In response, Gallant said: “The security of the state of Israel always was and will always remain my life’s mission.”

Katz vowed the return of Israel’s hostages from Gaza and destruction of Hamas and Hezbollah.

“I accept this responsibility with a sense of mission and holy fear for the security of the State of Israel and its citizens,” Katz said on social media platform X.

As foreign minister, [USN:S8N3LA00X TEXT:“Katz barred”] U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres last month from entering Israel over what he described as a failure to condemn an Iranian missile attack and antisemitic and anti-Israel conduct. In September, he [USN:L8N3L80L2 TEXT:“rejected proposals”] from the U.S. and France for a 21-day ceasefire in Lebanon.

[USN:L8N3KY0U8 TEXT:“Reports”] appeared in September that Netanyahu, under pressure from far-right coalition partners, was considering firing Gallant.

Gayil Talshir, a specialist in Israeli politics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, believed the last straw for Netanyahu came this week when Gallant issued 7,000 draft notices for ultra-Orthodox Haredi men, angering those in the government who oppose conscription.

Itamar Ben-Gvir, a minister in Netanyahu’s coalition government, praised Tuesday’s decision, saying Gallant was “deeply trapped in the conception” that it “is not possible to achieve absolute victory”.

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid said on X, however, that “firing Gallant in the middle of a war is an act of madness.”

In Washington, a spokesperson for the White House National Security Council said Gallant had been an important partner and that it would continue working collaboratively with Katz.

Gallant rose to the rank of general during a 35-year military career.

France’s foreign minister will travel to Israel and the Palestinian territories on Wednesday, a day after U.S. elections, to press Israel to engage diplomatically to end the conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon.

Earlier on Tuesday, Israeli forces issued new evacuation orders in the northern Gaza Strip and carried out military strikes which Palestinian medics and media said had killed at least 35 people since Monday night.

Acting U.N. aid chief Joyce Msuya said on X that Israeli military ground operations in northern Gaza had left Palestinians “without the essentials to survive, forced them to flee for safety multiple times, and cut off their escape and supply routes.”

An airstrike late on Monday damaged two houses in the town of Beit Lahiya, killing at least 20 people, the Palestinian official news agency WAFA and Hamas media said.

Ten were killed in central areas of the Palestinian enclave - six in separate airstrikes on Gaza City and the town of Deir Al-Balah, and four in the town of Al-Zawayda around midnight on Monday, medics and health officials said.

At least five others were killed in an Israeli strike on a house in Jabalia north of Gaza City, medics said later on Tuesday.

The Israeli military said, without giving details, that its forces had “eliminated terrorists” in the central Gaza Strip and Jabalia area. Israeli troops had also located weapons and explosives over the past day in the southern Rafah area, where “terrorist infrastructure sites” had been eliminated, it said.

Later on Tuesday, Israeli planes dropped leaflets over Beit Lahiya ordering residents who have not yet left their homes and shelters housing displaced families to quit the town completely.

“To all those who remained at homes and shelters, you are risking your lives. For your safety you have to head south,” said the leaflet, which was written in Arabic.

Palestinians said the new attacks and Israeli orders for evacuations were aimed at emptying areas to create buffer zones.

Israel says the evacuations are meant to keep civilians out of harm’s way as its troops battle Hamas fighters.

More than 43,300 Palestinians have been killed in more than a year of war in Gaza, health authorities in Gaza say.

The war began after Hamas-led militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies. – Reuters

Polling stations have opened across dozens of American states in a presidential election that is set to be a close race between Democratic candidate Vice-President Kamala Harris and Republican Donald Trump.

By Tuesday evening, Kabul time, polling stations had opened in more than three dozen states across the eastern and central US - including Washington DC, Florida, Illinois, Georgia, Alabama, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Missouri.

Alongside the presidential race, hundreds of congressional seats are also at stake, which will shape the party balance in the House and Senate.

Democratic candidate Kamala Harris and Republican candidate Donald Trump are polling neck and neck in the seven swing states which will likely decide the presidential race.

Currently, experts say the race could go either way.

If Donald Trump wins this election, he will enter the White House for the second time.

If Kamala Harris wins, she will become the first female president in the history of the United States. She will also be the first Asian American president.

But as millions of Americans get ready to vote, the public remains on edge - not only about the vote but about what might follow.

For four years, Trump and his allies have prepared to challenge the outcome if he loses again.

They have spent months filing lawsuits, laying the groundwork to contest ballots, results and the eligibility of voters. They have recruited thousands of volunteers to monitor polling places, drop boxes and counting facilities.

And, without evidence, they have claimed that the cheating has already begun — priming their staunchest supporters for confrontation, intimidation and, in the worst case, violence.

However, state and federal authorities are prepared. They have changed laws to make it harder to challenge certified results, strengthened security at election facilities and launched massive message campaigns to encourage public trust in US elections.

As a tense America votes on Tuesday for either Republican Donald Trump or Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris for president, concerns about potential political violence have prompted officials to take a variety of measures to bolster security during and after Election Day.

Many of the most visible moves can be seen in the battleground states that will decide the presidential election, states like Nevada where protests by Trump supporters broke out after the 2020 election.

This year, a security fence rings the scene of some of those protests - the Las Vegas tabulation center.

A defense official said on Monday that Alabama, Arizona, Delaware, Iowa, Illinois, North Carolina, New Mexico, Oregon, Wisconsin and Washington state have current National Guard missions while Washington DC, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia have troops on standby.

In Arizona, a similar metal fence has been erected at Maricopa County vote tabulation center in downtown Phoenix, a flashpoint in 2020 for rigged election conspiracy theories and threats against election officials.

County Sheriff Russ Skinner said his department will be on "high alert" for threats and violence and he has instructed staff to be available for duty.

"We will have a lot of resources out there, a lot of staff, a lot of equipment," he added, noting deputies will use drones to monitor activity around polling places and snipers and other reinforcements will be on standby for deployment if violence appears likely.

He said "polarization" becomes more intense in the days after the election so law enforcement will remain on heightened alert and "there will be zero tolerance on anything related to criminal activity".

Concerned about the potential for protests or even violence, several Arizona schools and churches that served as voting centers in the past will not serve as polling stations this year, a local election official told Reuters.

Precautions stretch beyond the battleground states. Oregon and Washington state authorities have said they have activated the National Guard. Some storefront windows in Washington, DC and elsewhere have been covered by plywood.

Back in Las Vegas, Faviola Garibay surveyed the security fence around the linen-colored building where Clark County officials tabulate the votes and where voters such as her can drop election ballots.

"The fencing, the presence of police here, it seems secure," she said. "I feel safe voting."