Journalism of Courage
Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir on Thursday said his party, Otzma Yehudit, will vote against the first phase of the Gaza ceasefire deal.
Israel has agreed to release hundreds of Palestinians from its prisons in exchange for Hamas freeing the 48 hostages from its captivity.
Ben-Gvir has slammed the exchange deal, calling it an “unbearable price” to be paid to reach a Gaza agreement.
Ben-Gvir also said that he told PM Netanyahu that he would not be part of any government “that will allow Hamas rule to continue in Gaza”.
“If the Hamas rule is not dismantled, or if we are only told that it is dismantled while in reality it will continue to exist under a different guise – Otzma Yehudit will dismantle the government,” he wrote on X.
Ben-Gvir is a hard-line supporter of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, and in the past, he was convicted eight times in Israel on charges including racist incitement and support for terrorist groups.
Long considered too extreme by other Israeli political parties, Ben-Gvir and his Jewish Power party joined the Netanyahu Cabinet after the PM’s Likud Party failed to garner popular support in the 2022 elections.
This is not the first time Ben-Gvir has threatened to pull down the fragile Netanyahu government over a Gaza ceasefire deal.
In January this year, Ben-Gvir resigned from the Netanyahu Cabinet to express his disapproval of a Gaza ceasefire deal Israel had then reached with Hamas. Ben-Gavir had called the ceasefire “reckless” and said it would “destroy all of Israel’s achievements.”
He joined back in the Netanyahu Cabinet in March this year, after the ceasefire deal collapsed and Israel stepped up attacks in Gaza.
Ben-Gavir, along with far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, has been banned by countries including the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Spain and Norway.
