Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fired his popular defense minister — a key Biden administration contact — in a surprise announcement Tuesday after months of butting heads over the war in Gaza. 

Netanyahu personally handed Yoav Gallant his termination letter after a brief meeting in the premier’s office, the Times of Israel reported.

“Unfortunately, although in the first months of the war there was trust and there was very fruitful work, during the last months this trust cracked between me and the Defense Minister,” Netanyahu said in a statement. 

“I made many attempts to bridge these gaps, but they kept getting wider,” he added. “They also came to the knowledge of the public in an unacceptable way, and worse than that, they came to the knowledge of the enemy — our enemies enjoyed it and derived a lot of benefit from it.”

Gallant, who is set to be replaced by Foreign Minister Israel Katz, said the security of Israel “always was, and will always remain, my life’s mission.” 

In a televised news conference, Gallant said he and Netanyahu disagreed over three main issues: ending exemptions from the military draft for ultra-Orthodox men, reaching a hostage deal and the need for an official probe into the Oct. 7 terror attack.

Gallant said a hostage deal must be reached “as quickly as possible, when they are still alive.”

“There is and will not be any atonement for abandoning the captives,” he said. “It will be a mark of Cain on the forehead of Israeli society and those leading this mistaken path.”

About 100 hostages remain in captivity, according to Israeli estimates, with only 65 still alive.

The sudden firing triggered protests in Tel Aviv as the Hostages and Missing Families Forum slammed Gallant’s dismissal as Netayahu’s latest alleged efforts “to torpedo the hostage deal.” 

“The dismissal of the Defense Minister is an unfortunate proof of the Israeli government’s poor set of priorities,” the Forum said in a statement.

Thousands of protesters rallied outside Netanyahu’s home in Jerusalem and elsewhere in the city.

Netanyahu tried to fire Gallant in March 2023, sparking widespread protests.

The PM allegedly waited for the day of the US elections to fire Gallant so as to avoid blowback from the Biden-Harris administration, which is currently focused on the polling outcome, a US official told the Times of Israel. 

The officials said the Biden team has been caught off guard by the decision to fire Gallant, who has regularly met with his US counterpart throughout the war.   

The White House on Tuesday declined to comment on Galant’s firing, only saying he was “an important partner on all matters related to the defense of Israel.”

“As close partners, we will continue to work collaboratively with Israel’s next minister of defense,” the White House National Security Council said.