Jerusalem, Jan 18 (EFE).- The six lawmakers of Jewish Power (Otzma Yehudit), the formation of ultra-right minister Itamar Ben Gvir, will leave the Israeli coalition government on Sunday in protest against the Gaza cease-fire agreement, putting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s parliamentary majority at risk.
In a statement, Jewish Power announced that it was leaving the coalition “in light of the approval of the reckless agreement with the Hamas terrorist organization.”
Ministers Ben Gvir (the party’s chairman and head of national security), Yitzhak Wasserlauf (in charge of development in the Negev and Galilee), and Amichai Eliyahu (in charge of the Heritage portfolio) are leaving along with Knesset members Zvika Fogel, Limor Son Har-Melech, and Yitzhak Kroizer.
Although Ben Gvir has said he will not try to bring down the coalition, his departure will leave Netanyahu’s governing coalition with a razor-thin parliamentary majority.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who also opposed any kind of ceasefire throughout the war and voted against the agreement, also threatened to leave the government unless Israel committed to renewing the offensive after the 42-day first phase of the agreed ceasefire ends.
Should he lose the support of Religious Zionism, Smotrich’s party, Netanyahu’s government would collapse.
The ceasefire deal
In the first phase of the deal, Hamas will release 33 hostages, “most of them alive,” according to the prime minister, in exchange for 1,904 Palestinian prisoners, including several serving multiple life sentences for deadly terrorist attacks.
The remaining 65 hostages will be released in later phases of the deal.
Netanyahu called the agreement a “temporary ceasefire,” and stressed that Israel could return to fighting in Gaza if the next phases of the deal are not implemented.
Hamas is holding in Gaza 94 hostages it kidnapped on Oct. 7, 2023 (at least 34 of whom have been confirmed dead by the Israeli Defense Forces), as well as two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, and the bodies of two IDF soldiers killed in 2014.
The Islamist organization has released 109 of the 251 hostages it captured in the October 7 attack, 105 during a week-long ceasefire in late November 2023, and four hostages were released earlier.
The IDF have rescued eight hostages alive and recovered the bodies of 40, including three it accidentally killed as they tried to escape. EFE
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