PM said to hold 2-hour meeting with Ben Gvir and Smotrich, as government holding together

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu concludes a meeting with National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir after about two hours, the Walla news site reports.

Ben Gvir, who leads the Otzma Yehudit party, said earlier tonight that his faction will leave the government if Hamas “continues to exist” after the return of the hostages held in Gaza.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich was also present for some of the meeting, according to Walla.

Smotrich, who like Ben Gvir has opposed previous hostage-ceasefire deals, said earlier that Netanyahu made a “serious mistake” by agreeing to halt offensive military operations in Gaza at the request of US President Donald Trump.

However, neither has actually pulled out of the government at this stage.

The two far-right ministers have been among the fiercest voices against ending the war as part of previous deals, even in exchange for all the hostages, and both have advocated annexing the Strip and settling it, a proposition that Trump’s Gaza plan explicitly rejects.

Opposition figures have said that they will make sure there is a majority in the Knesset to approve the Trump deal, even if the ministers pull out of the government in opposition.

The Haaretz daily reports that in recent days, Netanyahu and the two ministers have been in closer contact than was outwardly visible. The premier has been updating them regularly, it says, and spoke to them throughout Shabbat.

Sources close to the prime minister tell Haaretz that Netanyahu would rather see the hostages released, even if his government falls, than keep his government together at the expense of freeing the hostages — though other statements to this effect have been met with skepticism in the past.