Your announcement today deepens the division within the Israeli leadership, more than seven months after the start of a war whose declared objectives of dismantling the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas and freeing more than a hundred hostages kidnapped in its October 7th attack on Israeli territory have not yet been achieved. Gantz presented a six-point plan that includes returning the hostages home, putting an end to Hamas's rule in the Gaza Strip, demilitarizing that Palestinian territory, and creating an international administration for civil affairs. The plan also advocates for efforts to normalize Israel's relations with Saudi Arabia. He says that if his proposal is not adopted by June 8th, he will abandon the Israeli executive. A centrist politician and long-time political adversary of Netanyahu, Benny Gantz joined his government coalition and war cabinet in the early days of the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip. His departure would leave Netanyahu even more dependent on far-right allies, who have taken a hard line in the negotiations over the ceasefire and the release of the hostages and believe that Israel should occupy Gaza and rebuild Jewish settlements there. On October 7th of last year, Israel declared war on the Gaza Strip to "eradicate" the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas after it carried out an attack on Israeli territory hours earlier, killing more than 1,170 people, most of them civilians. The Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) -- in power in Gaza since 2007 and classified as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union, and Israel -- also took 252 hostages, 124 of whom remain in captivity and 37 of whom have since died, according to the latest report from the Israeli army. The war, which entered its 225th day today and continues to threaten to spread throughout the Middle East region, has so far resulted in 35,386 deaths in the Gaza Strip, more than 79,000 wounded, and about 10,000 missing, presumably buried in the rubble, most of them civilians, according to updated figures from local authorities. The conflict has also caused almost two million displaced persons, plunging the overcrowded and impoverished Palestinian enclave into a serious humanitarian crisis, with more than 1.1 million people in a "situation of catastrophic hunger" that is claiming victims - "the highest number ever recorded" by the UN in studies on food security in the world. Read Also: Israeli army announces repatriation of another body recovered in Gaza (Portuguese version)