Report: Senior minister in Netanyahu’s party told hostage families PM should be removed

A senior minister in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s party has told hostage families in recent days that the premier should be ousted along with the heads of security bodies over the failure to prevent Hamas’s October 7 massacre last year, according to Channel 12 news.

The network doesn’t say who the minister is.

It says the minister agreed with a series of accusations against the government voiced by the relatives of abductees taken during the Hamas onslaught.

One such claim voiced by a relative, the report says, was that far-right views have entered Likud in the form of Diaspora Minister Amichai Chikli, who “thinks like [far-right minister Itamar] Ben Gvir.”

Another argument by the same relative was reportedly that the government should agree to a ceasefire and hostage deal and then continue fighting, since “the prime minister knows well how to lie,” with the minister agreeing.

When the relative asked about Netanyahu’s attacks on the leadership of the Shin Bet security service, the minister reportedly said: “I would have sent the head of the Shin Bet home a long time ago — him, [IDF Chief of Staff] Herzi [Halevi], [Mossad chief] David Barnea, and everybody.”

Asked what about Netanyahu, the minister is said to have answered: “Netanyahu as well.”