Ben Gvir makes a final appeal to ministers to vote against the agreement: “It is not too late”

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MADRID Jan. 17 (EUROPA PRESS) –

The Minister of National Security of Israel, the ultranationalist Itamar Ben Gvir, has made a final call to the rest of the members of the Israeli Government to vote against the agreement reached with the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), which he believes will serve to release “terrorists” who in the future will try to “do harm again” and “kill.”

Ben Gvir has published a video on social networks in which he has acknowledged that the agreement “terrifies” him more and more as more details become known, which includes the release of “tens of thousands of terrorists” in Jerusalem and also in Judea and Samaria — biblical term with which he calls the West Bank– that “everyone knows” that “they will try to kill again.”

Thus, Ben Gvir has appealed to his “friends” in Likud, the party of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; and in Religious Zionism, headed by the Minister of Finance, the also ultranationalist Bezalel Smotrich. “It is not too late yet. We can stop this matter,” he stressed.

This Friday, Israel’s security cabinet gave the ‘green light’ to the agreement with Hamas for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, accompanied by the exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners. The matter will now go to the table of the cabinet of ministers, which will meet later this Friday and will be in charge of giving the final approval to the pact so that it comes into force on Sunday.

The United States and Qatar announced on Wednesday that, as main mediators between Israel and Hamas, the parties had reached an agreement for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip that also includes the release of hostages kidnapped by the Islamist group since the 7th. October 2023, in exchange for an undetermined number of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

However, the Israeli government did not comment on the matter at the time and on Thursday Prime Minister Netanyahu accused Hamas of “creating a last-minute crisis” by “retracting explicit understandings.” In this context, the Israeli head of the Executive announced the postponement of the meeting that his Government was going to hold to ratify the agreement.

Israel launched its offensive against Gaza after the attacks carried out on October 7, 2023, which left nearly 1,200 dead and about 250 kidnapped. Since then, almost 46,800 Palestinians have died in the Strip, according to the Gazan authorities, controlled by Hamas, to which are added more than 850 deaths at the hands of security forces and in attacks carried out by settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.