Israel’s Haaretz newspaper reports that Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has quit Netanyahu’s government in protest against the ceasefire deal.
Ben-Gvir strongly condemned the deal on Thursday night and said his ultra-nationalist Otzma Yehudit party – also known as the Jewish Power Party – would quit the government if the ceasefire agreement came into effect.
Also, in a statement condemning the “terrible” ceasefire agreement with Hamas, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich declares that he will not “sit in a government that, God forbid, will stop the war and will not continue until a total victory over Hamas is achieved.”
While he is pleased that some of the hostages will be returned home, Smotrich, the leader of the far-right Religious Zionism party, warns that “a difficult task follows immediately after that – to return and fight to victory.”
Although he voted against the hostage deal, Smotrich and his far-right Religious Zionism party remain in government after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly agreed to a number of his demands.
“Unfortunately, we could not prevent this dangerous deal, but we insisted and managed to ensure, through a government decision, in the cabinet and in other ways, that the war will not end in any way, without achieving its full objectives, which include the complete destruction of Hamas in Gazi,” he declares, even as the government-approved multi-phase hostage and cease-fire deal ends tonight with a permanent cease-fire.
“We demanded and received a commitment to completely change the method of war,” including “through the gradual takeover of the entire Gaza Strip, the lifting of the restrictions imposed on us by the Biden administration and full control of the Strip, so that humanitarian aid no longer reaches Hamas as it did before now,” says Smotrich, declaring that “there is no other way to achieve the goals of the war.”
(Vijesti.ba)
