National Security Council Itamar Ben-Gvir said on Tuesday that he had prevented Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from accepting previous attempts at securing a hostage release deal but was currently outnumbered in the coalition. He called on Finance Minister Bezalel Smortrich to join him in threatening resignation from the coalition to block the prime minister's intention to accept a deal now.
"In the past year, through our political strength, we succeeded in preventing such a deal from being made, time and again," he said.
Since Foreign Minister Gideon Saar and his New Hope faction joined the coalition, Ben-Gvir's Otzman Yehudit Party had lost its leverage to force his view on the government.
Netanyahu had previously rejected claims that he had refused proposals for a deal that would have seen hostages released, out of political considerations and fears that his government would be toppled and directed blame for the failure of negotiations, on Hamas.
Benjamin Netanyahu walks into the cabinet meeting
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in an interview to the New York Times earlier this week again said Hamas had rejected proposals to end the war and return the Israeli hostages. "What we’ve seen time and again is Hamas not concluding a deal that it should have concluded," he said pushing back against the allegation that Netanyahu had been responsible for the negotiation's failures.
"The pending deal is terrible, I know its details well," Ben-Gvir said in a long post on X. "It includes the release of hundreds of murderous terrorists from prison, the return of Gazans to the northern part of the Strip, the withdrawal of the IDF from the Netzarim Corridor and the renewed threat to the residents of the Gaza border area. In fact it wipes out the achievements gained in blood of our fighters thus far, in Gaza," he said.
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This is not a difficult choice. the deal does not bring about the release of all of the hostages and condemns those who are not named, to death. It is a conscious choice at the cost of the lives of many Israelis who will unfortunately pay the price. We've seen the fruits of such deals in the past and have learned, the hard way, that there is no meaning to the promises that thigs will later work out."
His post came 24 hours after Smotrich announced that he would vote against the deal but would not resign with his party from the ruling coalition.
Opposition Yair Lapid said Ben-Gvir unflinchingly revealed that Netanyahu had foiled chances of hostages being freed from political reasons.