Defense Minister Yoav Gallant voted against the measure, and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir abstained from voting.
By Vered Weiss, World Israel News
Israel’s security cabinet on Thursday voted in favor of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s condition that the IDF remain in the Philadelphi corridor as a pre-condition for any hostage-ceasefire deal.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant voted against the measure, and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir abstained from voting because he objected to the gradual reduction in the number of troops.
The approval was mainly symbolic since the maps showing the IDF’s intention to remain on the Philadelphi corridor close to Gaza’s border with Egypt were already included in the US’s “bridging proposal” of the hostage-ceasefire deal presented to Hamas as well as mediators in the US and Egypt.
Hamas and Egypt oppose Israel’s continued presence in the Philadelphi corridor.
Netanyahu’s condition of remaining in the corridor was added last month to the hostage-ceasefire proposal and has been blamed by critics for preventing it from being approved by Hamas.
Gallant, representing Israel’s security establishment, opposed the addition of the condition that Israel remain in the Philadelphi corridor because it is seen as further delaying a hostage-ceasefire deal.
Gallant warned that absent a deal, Israel faced “imminent deterioration into a multifront war.”
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum was outraged at the security cabinet’s vote and said, “After close to a year of neglect, Netanyahu doesn’t miss a single opportunity to ensure that there won’t be a deal.”
“Not a day goes by in which Netanyahu doesn’t take concrete action to jeopardize the return home of all the hostages,” they said.
However, the Tikva Forum, a group of hostage families who support a military solution to freeing the captives, welcomed the vote and said that it “creates highly significant pressure on Hamas that could help return all the hostages home.”
Netanyahu insists that October 7th wouldn’t have happened if the IDF had a presence in the Philadelphi corridor to prevent weapons smuggling.
He also criticized the security establishment for opposing his demand. He pointed out the perceived failures of the 2005 Disengagement from Gaza (which Netanyahu supported at the time), the withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000, and the Oslo Accords in the 1990s.
“Security officials claimed that they would know how to deal with the first rocket [from Gaza], but this did not happen after Hamas began raining fire on Israel,” Netanyahu told the ministers.
“Security officials also believed that they would know how to deal with the withdrawal from Lebanon and, before that, with the import of terrorist elements into Judea and Samaria as part of the Oslo Accords,” Netanyahu said, “These estimates were also wrong.”