Far-right ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich announced Thursday that their parties will vote against the first phase of Israel’s newly announced ceasefire and hostage-release agreement, setting up a potential confrontation that could fracture Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s fragile governing coalition.

The deal — which the cabinet is expected to approve tonight following hours of delay — calls for the release of all 48 Israeli hostages still held in Gaza in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. But Ben Gvir, Israel’s National Security Minister and head of the ultranationalist Otzma Yehudit party, said the cost of the agreement was too high.

“Our hearts are filled with joy, happiness and excitement that all the hostages are expected to return home,” Ben Gvir said in a statement. “But alongside this joy, we must not — under any circumstances — ignore the question of the price: the release of thousands of terrorists, including 250 murderers who are expected to be freed from prisons.”

Citing the danger of releasing convicted terrorists, Ben Gvir said Otzma Yehudit would “oppose the deal in the government.” The cabinet meeting, delayed for more than three hours over Ben Gvir’s objections to the prisoner list, is still expected to ratify the agreement later tonight.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who leads the Religious Zionism party, also announced his faction would vote against the deal, deepening tensions between Netanyahu’s far-right partners and the rest of the coalition.

While Ben Gvir said his party would remain in the coalition for now, he issued a warning to Netanyahu. “I made it clear to the prime minister that I will not remain in a government that allows Hamas’s rule in Gaza to continue,” he said. “If Hamas’s rule is not dismantled, or if we are merely told that it has been dismantled while in reality it continues to exist under another guise — Otzma Yehudit will bring down the government.”

If both Otzma Yehudit and Religious Zionism withdraw from the coalition, Netanyahu’s 60-seat government — already short of a parliamentary majority — would fall to just 47 seats in the 120-member Knesset, potentially triggering new elections.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)