
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made an offer to Religious Zionist Chairman Bezalel Smotrich and Otzma Yehudit Chairman Itamar Ben-Gvir, in exchange for their consent to stay in the government.
The offer, which was published on Tuesday evening on Kan News, was made after both parties expressed their objection to the emerging hostage deal and Ben Gvir threatened to resign from the government.
According to the report, Netanyahu offered the two, inter alia, the reinforcement of defense along the seam line, as well as additional construction in Judea and Samaria.
This morning, Ben Gvir called on Smotrich to join forces to express strong opposition to the hostage deal.
"The emerging deal is a surrender deal to Hamas," declared Ben Gvir. "Over the past year, using our political power, we have repeatedly managed to prevent this deal from being implemented. However, others have joined the government and as they support the deal we are no longer a deciding factor. This means that the Prime Minister will refrain from signing the deal only if the force that is balancing on the other side is large enough to prevent him from doing so."
Ben Gvir spoke to Bezalel Smotrich and said: "I am calling on you my friend to join me and work together against the deal of surrender to Hamas. The Religious Zionism party alone does not have the ability to prevent the deal. I suggest we go to the Prime Minister together and notify him that if he promotes the deal, we will withdraw from the government.
"I emphasize that even if we were in the opposition, we would not bring down the Prime Minister, but this cooperation is our only way to prevent the deal of surrender, to prevent this horrendous deal, and to ensure that the deaths of hundreds of soldiers were not in vain," said Ben Gvir.
He added, "The emerging deal is terrible. I am well acquainted with the details: the release of hundreds of murderous terrorists from prisons, the return of Gazans to Gaza, among them thousands of terrorists to the northern part of the strip, the withdrawal of the IDF from the Netzarim Corridor, and the reinstating of the threat to the residents of the Gaza Envelope, effectively obliterating the achievements of the war that were obtained at the great cost of our soldiers’ blood, so far, in the Gaza Strip. Even more so, we will not be releasing all the hostages, and it seals the fate of the remaining hostages to death."
Ben Gvir added that "this is not a 'difficult choice' that must be made in order to bring the hostages back home. It is a conscious choice at the cost of the lives of many other Israeli citizens who, unfortunately, will pay for this deal with their lives. We have already seen the outcomes of such deals in the past. We learned the hard way that there is no way to secure all the promises that 'afterwards it will be okay.'
"I call on the Prime Minister to wake up and ensure the defeat of Hamas and release of our hostages without compromising Israel's security: to completely stop the transfer of humanitarian aid, fuel, electricity, and water to Gaza, while putting continued military pressure on Hamas until its absolute defeat."