Photo by
Yoav Dudkevitch/TPS-IL on 14 January, 2025
Otzma Yehudit Party Quits Government In Protest Against Ceasefire
Jerusalem, 19 January, 2025 (TPS-IL) -- Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and his Otzma Yehudit Party formally quit the governing coalition on Sunday in protest against the government’s approval of a ceasefire deal with Hamas.
The party has six of the Knesset’s 120 seats.
Also resigning with Ben-Gvir were Minister for the Development of the Periphery, Negev and Galilee Yitzhak Wasserlauf and Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu.
It is widely expected that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will replace the three with Likud MKs on an interim basis, leaving open the possibility of the party returning should war with Hamas resume. Avi Dichter, currently the Minister of Agriculture and former director of the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet), is viewed as the leading figure to replace Ben-Gvir in the National Security Ministry.
Three other Otzma Yehudit MKs resigned as chairs of Knesset committees.
Meanwhile, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who also voted against the ceasefire in Friday’s government vote, said on Saturday night he will remain in the government.
“Look at Gaza, it’s destroyed, uninhabitable, and it will stay this way,” the Religious Zionism Party leader said in a statement. He added that he was promised that no humanitarian aid would fall into the hands of Hamas.
The ceasefire went into effect at 11:15 AM after Netanyahu’s office confirmed it received an hours-overdue list of three hostages to be released later on Sunday.
Less than one hour before the ceasefire was originally supposed to begin, the IDF announced it had recovered the body of Staff Sgt. Oron Shaul, whose body was held in Gaza since 2014.
The first phase of the ceasefire will see 33 Israeli hostages freed over a period of several days in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian terrorists imprisoned in Israel. The exact number will depend on how many of the 33 hostages are alive. Meanwhile, Israel’s High Court of Justice rejected a legal petition against the release of the Palestinians on Sunday morning.
At least 1,200 people were killed, and 252 Israelis and foreigners were taken hostage in Hamas’s attacks on Israeli communities near the Gaza border on October 7. Of the 95 remaining hostages, more than 30 have been declared dead.
