MK Yitzhak Pindrus (United Torah Judaism) on Tuesday night said that his party is not a member of any of the bodies handling the negotiations for a prisoner swap deal.
Speaking to Kikar Hashabbat, Pindrus said, "To our relief, we are not members of the Cabinet - neither the narrow Cabinet nor the expanded Cabinet, and not in the government, either."
"I believe that Agudat Yisrael will ask their Torah scholars, but first of all, [Hamas leader Yahya] Sinwar has to agree. On this matter, we prefer to keep our heads down and not get too involved in it."
Pindrus is a member of Degel Hatorah, a Lithuanian-haredi faction which runs together with the hasidic Agudat Yisrael faction in the joint list called United Torah Judaism (UTJ).
Regarding the protests demanding to bring the hostages home, Pindrus said, "The same group that was there during the [judicial] reform, the same group that was there previously, the black flags - is now also using the matter of the hostages. This group has now gone up a level, and uses more violence."
He added, "Will elections bring hostages home? Does [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu have a vested interest in there being hostages? Whoever thinks that needs mental health treatment."
On the Simchat Torah (October 7) massacre, Pindrus said, "I am a believing Jew, and I have no doubt that this was to show us that there is no 'my strength and my might,' not the technology, not the ISA, and not the IDF, everything that we know did not save us from the horrific tragedy of Simchat Torah. On the matter of 'putting in the effort,' all the State of Israel's security bodies fell asleep."
Regarding the Draft Law, he said, "We need to do everything so that a yeshiva student can sit and learn Torah. Right now that doesn't exist, and that is what we need to do."
"We needed to have passed [this] before the budget, and there were other considerations, and it turns out that the issue of the [judicial] reform was no less critical and we see that the one who simply stopped the law was the Attorney General, and part of the reform was the issue of the Attorney General."