Times of Israel
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir is said to have reached out Wednesday to Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich to request that the two far-right party leaders form a united bloc within the government against the emerging ceasefire deal in Gaza being pushed by the Trump administration.
According to Hebrew language media reports, the two — who lead the Otzma Yehudit and Religious Zionism parties, respectively — were said to be mulling a meeting to discuss coordinating their opposition to the American initiative.
The notion of the ministers preventing a hostage deal drew outrage from opposition leaders, who promised to give the government a majority in the Knesset for any such agreement, and families of hostages who said their alleged behavior was a ‘disgrace.’
The Kan public broadcaster quoted Ben Gvir as explaining he wanted Smotrich’s help as he alone ‘cannot halt this process, but together they have enough votes [in parliament] against the deal.’
The two parties together have 13 seats in the 120-seat Knesset, where the ruling coalition fields a slim majority with just 61 lawmakers. Though the cabinet would not need Knesset approval for a hostage deal and can authorize one even against the wishes of Ben Gvir and Smotrich, the two parties could threaten to hamper coalition legislative action in parliament if they don’t get their way.
Opposition Leader Yair Lapid offered Netanyahu opposition support for a ceasefire that would outweigh the loss of Ben Gvir and Smotrich.
In place of Ben Gvir and Smotrich’s 13 votes in the Knesset, ‘you have 23 votes from me as a safety net for the hostage deal,’ Lapid said in a statement. ‘We need to bring everyone home now.’
Democrats party chairman Yair Golan tweeted that Smotrich and Ben Gvir were a ‘pair of failed Kahanists’ whose actions show that they are ‘neither Zionist nor worthy of sitting around the government table,’ a reference to the banned ultra-nationalist Rabbi Meir Kahane, of whom Ben Gvir was a disciple, and who was assassinated in New York in 1990.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, the largest group representing families of captives, said in response to the reports that the religiously Orthodox Smotrich and Ben Gvir ‘have forgotten what it means to be Jews, and the significance of the values of mutual friendship and responsibility on which the State of Israel was founded.’
‘We have no other word for them this morning than ‘disgrace,” it said.
Einav Zangauker, whose son Matan is held hostage in Gaza, appealed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to align himself with the pair of ‘wretched’ ministers in preventing a deal.
She also noted that the prime minister himself recently assured her that he does not need Ben Gvir and Smotrich to approve a hostage deal, as he has broad support for such a move even without them.
On Tuesday evening, US President Donald Trump announced that Israel had agreed to the necessary conditions to finalize a 60-day ceasefire with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
‘We will work with all parties to end the war’ during the prospective two-month truce, Trump said in a Truth Social post, summarizing the development that came out of meetings top US officials held on Tuesday in Washington with visiting Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer.
Netanyahu is scheduled to visit the White House next week, and Trump has said that he will be ‘very firm’ with the prime minister on the need to end the war in Gaza.
Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit party quit the government in January to protest a previous ceasefire/hostage release deal, only returning in March with the resumption of hostilities. Smotrich kept his Religious Zionism party in the coalition for the ceasefire but conditioned his staying in on the resumption of fighting against Hamas rather than using the truce period to negotiate a final end to the war, as was originally stated in the agreement. The ceasefire collapsed in March when Israel renewed attacks on Hamas.
Dozens of hostages, dead and alive, were released during the ceasefire that was arranged by the Trump administration.