Ben Gvir threatens to stop voting with coalition if death penalty for terrorists bill does not pass

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir says that if a death penalty for terrorists does not pass its first reading in the Knesset plenum within the next three weeks, his far-right Otzma Yehudit party will no longer consider itself obligated to vote with the coalition.

Addressing reporters ahead of his party’s weekly faction meeting in the Knesset on the opening day of the winter parliamentary session, Ben Gvir says that with the release of the last living hostages from Gaza there are “no more excuses” not to advance the legislation, which he says will deter terrorism. Ben Gvir also reiterates his demand that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continue the war and “dismantle Hamas.”

If the government doesn’t dismantle Hamas, “I will dismantle the government,” he adds, without specifying a deadline.

Ben Gvir’s statement serves as an elaboration of a threat he made on Saturday evening when he told Channel 12’s Meet The Press that he had given Netanyahu a deadline to dismantle Hamas and enact the death penalty for terrorists, threatening that if his conditions were not met, his 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 said in the interview, declining to say how much time he had given Netanyahu to comply with his demands.