Likud members bash Otzma Yehudit for boycotting cabinet meeting

Members of the ruling Likud party sharply criticize ministers from the far-right Otzma Yehudit for skipping today’s cabinet meeting, as part of a growing spat between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.

Likud MK David Bitan calls on Otzma Yehudit to end its boycott of Knesset votes. “This creates a dynamic of a government’s collapse,” he says in an interview with Army Radio.

Fellow Likud lawmaker Keti Shitrit says Ben Gvir’s party received “critical positions” in the government and Knesset committees, denying it’s “being diminished.”

“It’s a difficult situation managing this entire puzzle called the Israeli government,” she tells Channel 12 news.

According to Hebrew media reports, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said during today’s cabinet meeting that holding terrorists’ bodies is not “an asset” vis-a-vis Palestinian terror groups, “expect in very rare cases relating mostly to Hamas.”

“I’m not moved by a minister who attacks me, particularly those who have seen fewer bodies of terrorists than I did,” adds Gallant, a former general, in reference to Ben Gvir’s objection to the return of a Palestinian assailant’s body.