From the Liveblog of
Wednesday, July 2, 2025
Opposition head offers to help coalition clinch Gaza deal if hard right tries to block it
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. 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"
Responding to reports that coalition hardliners Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich may work together to sink a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal, Opposition Leader Yair Lapid tells Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that his party will provide any needed support from across the aisle.
In place of Otzma Yehudit’s and Religious Zionism’s 13 votes in the Knesset, “you have 23 votes from me as a safety net for the hostage deal,” Lapid says in a statement. “We need to bring everyone home now.”
The Democrats chairman Yair Golan, meanwhile, tweets that Ben Gvir and Smotrich are a “pair of failed Kahanists” whose actions show that they are “neither Zionist nor worthy of sitting around the government table.”
The Times of Israel Community.