Coalition, opposition put aside differences to celebrate hostage releases, Trump visit

By Sam Sokol 13 October 2025, 10:13 am

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Sam Sokol is a former political correspondent at The Times of Israel. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"

Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle gather in the halls of the Knesset, eating and mingling with dignitaries from the United States.

While Israel’s parliament is festive ahead of US President Donald Trump’s scheduled speech, with many lawmakers expressing optimism for the future, their joy is also tinged with sadness for the losses of the last two years — and, for some, anxiety regarding the possibility of renewed fighting in the future.

“This is a morning that combines joy, pain and hope,” Evgeny Sova, a lawmaker for the hawkish Yisrael Beytenu opposition party tells The Times of Israel. “Nothing is more important than the lives of the hostages, even at the heavy price we are paying… We are paying a price for the negligence of October 7.”

Similarly, MK Vladimir Beliak, of the centrist Yesh Atid party, says today’s hostage release “maybe [marks] a new beginning and change in Israeli society,” and hopes there will be an “alternative government in the Gaza Strip, which is not Hamas, which will also open a path to normalization and, above all, allow us to turn to addressing the internal problems of the State of Israel.”

Shas lawmaker Yinon Azoulay says Hamas’s “era in Gaza is over” and that Israel must strike every time the group raises its head. “And I’m sure that the President of the United States also understands this.”

MK Simcha Rothman of the coalition’s hard-right Religious Zionism party, which opposed the deal, says the US president “means what he says” about the war being over.

“He is saying that if this agreement is implemented as written…Hamas will not control the Strip. Israel remains in the Philadelphi Corridor and on the perimeter,” and neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority will rule the strip…. Will it really be the end of the war. I’m skeptical…Because if we fail in this, Hamas will get stronger again and we will arrive at October 7 again.”