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Netanyahu faces opposition within Likud over hostage deal

Following news of a breakthrough, 10 coalition lawmakers, including 7 Likud MKs, sign onto petition rejecting the current hostage deal and ceasefire proposal under consideration.

By World Israel News Staff

Several coalition lawmakers came out Monday against the proposed hostage deal and Gaza ceasefire currently under consideration in Doha, Qatar, highlighting the challenges Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could face in securing backing for a agreement with Hamas.

On Monday, two groups jointly penned a letter to Netanyahu expressing their opposition to the deal currently on the table and urged him to reject any proposal that requires Israel to surrender control over strategic areas in the Gaza Strip, including the Philadephi Corridor separating Gaza from Egypt.

“The alarming reports about a potential agreement with Hamas during these critical times raise severe concerns for Israel’s security,” the letter reads.

“Amidst overwhelming internal and external pressures, we reiterate that under no circumstances should three moral red lines be crossed in any agreement with the murderous terrorist organization Hamas.

“We cannot rely on others when it comes to Israel’s security. No one can replace IDF soldiers—whether at the Rafah Crossing, the Netzarim Corridor, or anywhere else.”

The letter also demanded that any hostage release be conducted in a single step rather than over multiple phases, and it warned against allowing the return en masse of Gazans to the northern Gaza Strip.

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“There must be no return of the enemy to the northern Gaza Strip,” the letter read. “This area is filled with weapons stockpiles and rockets and poses a direct threat to the residents of Sderot and the surrounding areas. Allowing mass return to this region will inevitably lead to renewed rocketfire against our citizens.

“Such a step would squander the significant achievements of the war and render the sacrifices of those who fell in battle meaningless. It is an immoral move that will demand the lives of hundreds more soldiers to clear the area of the neo-Nazi enemy we are facing.”

The letter was penned by two right-leaning groups: the Tikva Forum, one of two organizations lobbying on behalf of Israeli hostages held in Gaza, and the Gvura Forum, representing the families of soldiers killed on October 7,2023, or during the ensuing war.

Ten Knesset members from the coalition signed the letter, including seven members of Netanyahu’s own Likud party: MKs Amit Halevi, Hanoch Milwidsky, Moshe Sa’ada, Tsega Melaku, Moshe Passal, Avichai Boaron, and Dan Iluz.

Two MKs from Otzma Yehudit – Limor Son Har-Melech and Yitzhak Kroizer – also signed the letter, along with MK Simcha Rothman from the Religious Zionist Party.

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Earlier on Monday, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, chairman of the Religious Zionist Party, signaled that his faction would oppose the current hostage deal proposal, calling it a “catastrophe” for Israeli national security.