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Israeli minister seeks religious backing to leave coalition over ‘damaging’ hostage deal

Both the Finance Minister and Internal Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir are threatening to take their parties out of the government.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Finance Minister and Religious Zionism party head Bezalel Smotrich is consulting with leading rabbis of the nationalist-religious stream about leaving the coalition over the newest incipient hostages-for-ceasefire deal with Hamas, Kan News reported Monday.

Informed sources told the network that Smotrich wants to walk away even before the finalization of a deal that means a premature end to the war with Hamas.

Already on Saturday night, the nationalist hawk said that he had “made it clear” to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that his party “will not agree to the end of the war before the destruction of Hamas, nor to doing serious damage to the achievements of the war so far through the withdrawal of the IDF and the return of Gazans to northern Gaza, and nor to the wholesale release of terrorists who, God forbid, will return to murdering Jews.”

Internal Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, whose Otzma Yehudit party is considered the most right-wing of all the coalition factions, has also threatened to “dismantle the government” over the proposed deal, which he called a guarantee of Israel’s “total defeat” rather than that of Hamas.

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The ministers’ anger bubbled forth after only the small War Cabinet approved a new proposal last week before sending it to Hamas.

Fearing leaks and political use of the information that could torpedo it, the news report said, the War Cabinet, led by Netanyahu, ordered that only the broadest outline be released to the expanded cabinet.

Ben-Gvir and several other ministers were incredulous that they were not being provided with specifics on the most important issue of the day.

On Friday, U.S. President Joe Biden had presented what he called an Israeli three-phase deal.

He said that the first stage would last six weeks, with the return of female, elderly and wounded hostages in return for a ceasefire, abundant humanitarian aid, the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, and an IDF withdrawal from all heavily populated areas in the Gaza Strip.

The second stage would see the release of all remaining live hostages, with the IDF completely leaving the coastal enclave and “a cessation of hostilities permanently.” The third phase would begin the reconstruction process, with Hamas supposedly no longer in the picture as a ruling entity.

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Monday that “The world should know…that the only thing standing in the way of an immediate ceasefire today is Hamas.”

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Netanyahu reacted to Biden’s speech by calling the details “incomplete,” and denying that it meant Israel had to end the fighting before Hamas was destroyed, a key goal of the war that he says he has never given up.

If the two right-wing parties do bolt the government, Opposition leader Yair Lapid said Monday that he would provide the coalition with a “safety net” to see the deal through.