Opposition leader MK Yair Lapid on Wednesday morning slammed Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, claiming that Smotrich does not want to bring the hostages home to Israel.
In Lapid's opinion, the proper course of action is to reach an agreement with the Hamas terror group, instead of relying on public statements.
Hamas and other terrorists kidnapped 255 people - mostly Israeli civilians - to Gaza on the morning of the October 7 massacre. Israel has rescued some of them in military operations, but the majority of returned hostages were released in deals, in exchange for dangerous terrorists, some of whom were serving life sentences. Many Israelis oppose such deals, especially since Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, mastermind of the October 7 massacre, was himself released in a 2011 deal, which saw IDF soldier Gilad Shalit returned to Israel in exchange for 1,027 terrorists - 82% of whom returned to terror following their release. At the time of his release, Sinwar had no blood on his hands and was a low-profile terrorist. He began planning the massacre immediately after his release.
"What needed to happen was to make a single deal and bring everyone home,"Lapid told Kan Reshet Bet, referring to the fact that the current deal is spread over three stages, and only 33 hostages - eight of whom are no longer alive- will return in the first stage.
He added: "What needs to happen now is to continue the current deal and complete it - they should not stop now."
Lapid also stressed that the responsibility lies with the Israeli government, even though Hamas has repeatedly violated the ceasefire and were the ones to announce its pause.
"We are dealing with animals, a criminal terror group - it's obvious that it will always be chaotic. The government's job is to bring back the hostages," he said.
Regarding the government's decision to pause talks for the deal's second stage in response to Hamas' announcement, Lapid said: "If this pressure on Hamas brings the release of the hostages, then it's totally fine. But at the end of the day, the task is one thing: To bring them home."
When asked about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's ultimatum to Hamas, Lapid said: "At the end, if we want to reach a situation in which we cancel the stages and the groups and we make one deal, that's not through a unilateral announcement by Smotrich. We need to start an organized process with the negotiators. I'm very much in favor [of it]."
"I am in favor of eliminating Hamas, but first we must bring all the hostages home, and the price of that will be, in the meantime, ending the war. There's no doubt that Hamas will violate [the deal] later on."
Lapid also estimated that the crisis will be resolved by the time Hamas is scheduled to release hostages on Saturday: "Hamas initiated a crisis on Monday; I believe that means that they want to solve it by Saturday."
Lapid also harshly criticized Smotrich, claiming, "Smotrich does not really hide that he does not want to bring hostages home. He wants to bring about the next 'cleared for publication' (referring to announcements regarding fallen soldiers - ed.).That is not the interest of the State of Israel, that is not what we need right now."