The chairman of the Religious Zionism Party, MK Bezalel Smotrich, reacted sharply to the attempt of the chairman of the opposition, Benjamin Netanyahu, to interfere in his negotiations with the Otzma Yehudit Party, Kan 11 News reported on Tuesday evening.

According to the report, in one of his conversations with the Likud chairman, Smotrich said, "No one should interfere with how my party is run. Ben Gvir will not get the ‘zipper method’ (equal division of seats on the slate -ed.) and not one of his MKs for every two of mine. He can run alone."

Smotrich denied that he said the sentence in question.

Earlier reports said that Netanyahu's office is pressuring Smotrich and MK Itamar Ben Gvir, who chairs Otzma Yehudit, to reach an agreement in which they will run together in the upcoming elections.

The pressure stems from concerns that if the two parties, which ran together last year, split up, one or both may not pass the electoral threshold, costly the right-wing bloc a significant number of seats. Associates of Netanyahu would like to see the parties finalize their joint run in the coming days.

On Tuesday morning, Smotrich told Galey Israel Radio, "We are, with God's help, running together. This partnership has proven itself. We will manage it in a closed room, responsibly. There is one thing that interests us - the responsibility to the State of Israel and to the Right."

"Woe unto us if we wake up to a government of Prime Minister Yair Lapid and the Joint List."

Ben Gvir said, "I am happy that finally, Bezalel has agreed to meet. I hope that the meeting will not be just to check off that we met. I am coming to sit in the room in order to finalize matters."