PM to meet with Smotrich to gauge support for a potential hostage deal — report

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to meet with far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich later today amid a growing push for a potential ceasefire-hostage deal, the Walla news site reports.

A political source tells the outlet that Netanyahu is trying to assess if Smotrich would resign from the government if there were to be a deal that would see hundreds of terror convicts freed from Israeli prisons in exchange for hostages.

The report says the premier believes there’s a high probability far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir will resign from the government if there is a hostage deal, so Netanyahu is hoping to convince Smotrich to, at most, vote against an agreement without quitting the coalition.

Smotrich, a settlement advocate who is also a minister in the Defense Ministry, last week denounced the ongoing negotiations to reach a hostage-ceasefire deal with Hamas, arguing Israel would be in a stronger position in talks once US President-elect Donald Trump is back in the White House, in just over a week.

Netanyahu’s office announced yesterday evening that he had decided to send a high-level delegation to Qatar to join efforts to seal a deal with the Hamas terror group.

It is believed that 94 of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the IDF.

Hamas released 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November, and four hostages were released before that. Eight hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 40 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the Israeli military as they tried to escape their captors.

Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the bodies of two IDF soldiers who were killed in 2014.