Ben Gvir says he gave PM deadline to dismantle Hamas, enact death penalty for terrorists

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said Saturday he had given Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a deadline to dismantle Hamas and enact the death penalty for terrorists, threatening that if his conditions were not met, his far-right Otzma Yehudit party would quit the government.

“What I want, and this is also what Netanyahu promised me, is the dismantlement of Hamas, and if he doesn’t dismantle Hamas, he knows very well what will happen,” Ben Gvir told Channel 12’s Meet The Press in an interview.

He declined to say how much time he had given Netanyahu to comply with his demands, which also include implementing a death penalty for terrorists, something he said was promised in his party’s coalition agreement in 2022.

Ben Gvir recently threatened to bolt the government if Hamas “continues to exist” after the hostages are freed, stating that his party would not be a part of “a national defeat” and “eternal disgrace,” and would not agree to a situation in which the terrorist group is able to rebuild itself after the end of hostilities.

He was one of a small handful of ministers who last week voted against the first phase of the Gaza ceasefire deal, under which Palestinian prisoners were exchanged for hostages held by Hamas, and which US President Donald Trump has said will lead to a permanent end to the war. Earlier this year, Ben Gvir’s party quit the coalition for several months to protest the acceptance of a previous partial ceasefire-hostage deal.

Ministers only voted on the “first phase” of Trump’s wider plan for peace in Gaza, a senior government official told The Times of Israel at the time, noting that they did not discuss Trump’s full plan, and stressing that they did not endorse an end to the war.

According to the Trump plan, once all hostages are returned, Hamas members who commit to peaceful co-existence and to decommission their weapons will be given amnesty. Members of Hamas who wish to leave Gaza will be provided safe passage to receiving countries. Gaza will be governed under the temporary transitional governance of a technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee.

However, Hamas has indicated it would have many caveats to such aspects of the deal, and negotiations on the matter are expected to be complex. The terror group appears to have taken steps to shore up its power in Gaza in recent days, engaging in summary executions of Palestinians it has accused of collaboration with Israel.

Pushing for the death penalty

Ben Gvir on Saturday argued that implementing a death penalty for terrorists was “moral” and would prevent future kidnappings.

“Netanyahu promised me this for the last two years. Every time I asked, our dear prime minister, whom I respect very much, told me: ‘Listen, Ben Gvir, we have hostages, the hostages will be released alive and we will do it.’”

He added, “Now there are no excuses. The prime minister knows I am serious.”

Following a deadly terror attack in Jerusalem last month, Otzma Yehudit announced that it intended to raise the death penalty issue in the Knesset again, with Hebrew media reporting that the far-right party believed the coalition had failed to advance the issue fast enough and the discussion needed to be expedited.

The Knesset National Security Committee subsequently voted to advance a bill by Otzma Yehudit MK Limor Son Har-Melech allowing courts to impose the death penalty on terrorists who kill Israelis, paving the way for the first of three plenum votes necessary for it to become law.

The legislation had long been stalled due to high-level opposition within the government and security services.

Ben Gvir said in September that he had been approached by “people in the Prime Minister’s Office” who asked him to postpone the death penalty discussion over concerns that it could complicate efforts to free the hostages, but had refused. Instead, he claimed at the time that the bill would “bring deterrence” and “advance the return of the hostages” while showing Hamas that “there is a price tag for what they did” on October 7.

Ben Gvir has on several occasions bragged about downgrading Palestinian inmates’ conditions in prisons. On Friday, Channel 12 cited former hostages as saying that such comments led Hamas captors to abuse them, including beating them with horse whips until they were unconscious.

Following the release of the last remaining living hostages from Gaza last week, Justice Minister Yariv Levin announced that he was advancing legislation in the Knesset to establish a special criminal tribunal to try Gazan terrorists accused of carrying out massacres and atrocities on October 7, 2023, in a process that could result in death sentences being handed down to those convicted.

The tribunal will be able to try the dozens of Gazans captured in Israel between October 7 and October 14, 2023, suspected of being Hamas operatives for crimes listed under Israel’s 1950 Law for the Prevention of Genocide, which is based on the 1948 Genocide Convention, which can carry a death sentence.

Jeremy Sharon contributed to this report.