Two days before Israel and Hamas reached a long-awaited cease-fire and hostage-release deal, Itamar Ben-Gvir, a rebellious far-right Israeli minister, issued a video statement calling on another far-right coalition partner to join forces and scupper the agreement by quitting Prime Minister Benjamin NetanyahuтАЩs government.
Mr. Ben-Gvir also asserted that these far-right coalition parties had used their political leverage to thwart a similar deal тАЬtime after timeтАЭ over the past year, causing an uproar.
Critics of Mr. NetanyahuтАЩs government, including many of the families of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, have repeatedly accused the prime minister of sabotaging past efforts to reach a deal in order to preserve his coalition тАФ the most right-wing and religiously conservative in IsraelтАЩs history тАФ and remain in power.
Mr. Netanyahu and his loyalists have blamed Hamas for past failures to reach a deal. The current agreement was expected to gain government approval even without the support of the two far-right parties, since a majority of cabinet members are in favor of it.
But the fracas caused by Mr. Ben GvirтАЩs comments underscored the resurgent fissures in Israeli politics and society following the deadly Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which prompted the war, and the widening fault lines within the Israeli government.
Another far-right cabinet member, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, called the agreement тАЬbad and dangerous to IsraelтАЩs national securityтАЭ and said he absolutely opposed it. But he did not explicitly threaten to leave the government.
Describing the emerging deal as an Israeli тАЬsurrenderтАЭ to Hamas, Mr. Ben-Gvir played on Israeli emotions in his statement, saying that the terms of the agreement would erase the achievements of the war in Gaza that were gained with the blood of Israeli soldiers.
But the narrative being broadcast by Mr. Netanyahu and his aides says the opposite.
An Israeli government official contradicted Mr. Ben-GvirтАЩs assertions this week, saying Hamas had only put on a fa├зade of negotiating in the past rounds of talks and had engaged seriously this time largely because of IsraelтАЩs military achievements.
Speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the emerging deal, which was negotiated in secret, the official said conditions for it were created by the killing by Israeli forces of Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader in Gaza, in October and the increasing isolation of Hamas as Israel began in recent months to dismantle the axis of Iranian-backed proxies around its borders, including Hezbollah, HamasтАЩs ally in Lebanon.
The official pointed to increasing pressure on Hamas from the suffering Palestinian population in Gaza with the onset of another winter.
He also acknowledged the pressure to achieve a deal from the United States. Officials in the Biden administration had been pressing for a deal that would become part of the departing presidentтАЩs legacy. And President-elect Trump had warned that тАЬall hell will break out in the Middle EastтАЭ if Hamas does not release the hostages before he assumes office on Jan. 20.
