Shas minister calls for telephone vote to approve hostage-ceasefire deal before Shabbat

Interior Minister Moshe Arbel attends a plenum session at the Knesset in Jerusalem, July 24, 2024. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Interior Minister Moshe Arbel attends a plenum session at the Knesset in Jerusalem, July 24, 2024. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Interior Minister Moshe Arbel submits a request to cabinet secretary Yossi Fuchs to hold a telephone vote to approve the hostage-ceasefire deal with Hamas that was signed in Doha late last night.

“In these matters, every hour and every minute is important — both for the hostages themselves and for their families who yearn for certainty after over a year in captivity,” he writes.

If the vote can be brought forward to today, before the beginning of the Sabbath, it will allow opponents of the deal the 24 hours required to petition the High Court of Justice so that the deal can be implemented on Sunday as mediators have urged.

A Netanyahu spokesperson said earlier this morning that the full cabinet meeting was not slated to take place until tomorrow night to give people who are religious and observe the Sabbath time to petition.

It’s unclear why the religious principle allowing the violation of the Sabbath to save a life doesn’t apply in this case.

“Therefore… I request that the government hold a telephone vote on this issue so that the families of the hostages can know at the beginning of Shabbat that the Israeli government has approved the deal and that it will be implemented at the beginning of the week,” the Shas minister writes.

Israel says 98 hostages are currently held in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 36 confirmed dead by the IDF. The agreed-upon first phase of the deal will see Hamas release 33 “humanitarian” hostages over 42 days — children, women, female soldiers, the elderly and the sick. Israel believes most of the 33 are alive but that some are dead. Jerusalem has not yet received word on each hostage’s status.

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