Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and War Cabinet Minister Benny Gantz called for Hamas to be destroyed, as planned by the government when it went to war after the Islamist movement’s October 7 attack.
“If you decide to raise a white flag and cancel the plan to occupy Rafah aimed at destroying Hamas in order to restore security to Israel, then the government headed by you will have no right to exist,” Smotrich wrote on X, addressing the premier.
“The Egyptian deal is a humiliating surrender… it sentences the hostages to death, and above all, constitutes an immediate existential danger to the state of Israel.”
Gantz, a former army chief and defense minister, also pushed for Rafah to be invaded.
“Entering Rafah is important in the long struggle against Hamas,” he said in a statement issued by his party.
“If a responsible outline for the return of hostages backed by the entire defense establishment is achieved, which doesn’t entail ending the war, and the ministers who led the government on October 7 prevent it, the government will not have the right to continue to exist.”
Diplomatic efforts have intensified to reach a truce and hostage-release deal in Gaza amid growing calls against a ground assault on Rafah.
The Axios news website, citing two Israeli officials, reported that Israel’s latest proposal includes a willingness to discuss the “restoration of sustainable calm” in Gaza after hostages are released.
It is the first time in the nearly seven-months war that Israeli leaders have suggested that they are open to discussing an end to the war, Axios said.
With AFP
