Otzma Yehudit exits coalition over Gaza deal, blasting it as ‘victory for terrorism’
Chairman Ben Gvir tells Netanyahu he’s proud of party’s ‘significant achievements under your leadership’ but slams him for crossing ‘all ideological red lines’
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"

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s far-right Otzma Yehudit party quit the coalition on Sunday morning, following through on its threat to exit if the government agreed to a ceasefire agreement with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
In a statement, the party said that its three cabinet members — Ben Gvir, Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu, and Negev, Galilee and National Resilience Minister Yitzhak Wasserlauf — submitted resignation letters to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In addition, MKs Zvika Fogel, Limor Son Har-Melech and Yitzhak Kroizer resigned their spots on the various committees they were members of.
“From this time onwards the Otzma Yehudit party is not a member of the coalition,” the party declared.
Otzma Yehudit departure reduces the Netanyahu coalition’s Knesset majority from 68 of the 120 MKs to 62 or 63, depending on complex arrangements that will now have to be resolved between Ben-Gvir’s party and Bezalel Smotrich’s far-right Religious Zionism, which ran on a joint list in the 2022 elections before separating.
Writing to Netanyahu, Ben Gvir boasted of his “significant achievements under your leadership” but complained of what he says was the prime minister’s “surrender-to-terror deal, which crosses all ideological red lines.”
The ceasefire constitutes “a complete victory for terrorism,” Ben Gvir declared, asserting that “we do not intend to work to overthrow the government led by you, but on ideological issues we will vote according to our outlook and our conscience.”
“We will not return to the government table without a complete victory against Hamas and the full realization of the war’s goals,” he added.

The statement did not mention Otzma Yehudit MK Almog Cohen, who has broken with his party to vote with the coalition several times in recent weeks, leaving his current status unclear.
Hebrew media reports have speculated that Cohen — who did not attend the party’s press conference on Thursday evening at which it announced that it would withdraw from government if the cabinet approved the deal — will remain a member of the coalition.
An Otzma Yehudit spokesman referred the matter to Cohen, who did not respond to a Times of Israel request for comment.
However, asked about Ben Gvir’s withdrawal from the coalition during an interview with Radio 103FM on Sunday morning, Cohen replied that “if it’s that bad, he should have brought down the government and not resigned.”
“There’s no good deal with the devil; it was a devil before and it will remain a devil after the deal. There’s no choice but to make a deal because the devil is the one who kidnapped our brothers,” he declared, adding that his priority was “to return to fighting and destroy Hamas.”
Netanyahu’s coalition will retain a Knesset majority even without Ben Gvir’s party, even though it will be much narrower than before.
MK Yitzhak Kroizer became an MK in early 2023 under the so-called Norwegian Law when Amichai Eliyahu became heritage minister. The law allows ministers and deputy ministers from large factions to resign from the Knesset, with their seats filled by members of their parties.

However, Eliyahu’s resignation from the cabinet will not push Kroizer out of the Knesset. Instead, it will force the resignation of Religious Zionism MK Zvi Sukkot, who held a lower spot on the two parties’ joint electoral list in the 2022 legislative election. This would likely prompt Finance Minister and Religious Zionism chairman Smotrich to retake his own Knesset seat, in turn pushing out Kroizer.
This would leave Otzma Yehudit with six seats out of 120 in Knesset, bringing the coalition’s majority down to 63 if Cohen remains in the coalition — or 62, if he does not.
Kroizer’s exit from the Knesset would also take him off of the Judicial Selection Committee, where he is a key loyalist to Justice Minister Yariv Levin.
Kroizer is one of the Knesset’s representatives on the committee that selects judges, whose composition was a central part of the government’s judicial overhaul agenda, which Levin is currently seeking to revive.
Acknowledging his pending exit from the Knesset, Sukkot declared in a statement on Sunday afternoon that he supports Smotrich’s decision to remain in the government.
“The outline talks about a second phase of the deal that would include Israel’s complete and final withdrawal from Gaza and, in turn, the return of Hamas rule. I have no doubt that if we were to dissolve the government now, that would be where it would go, and of course with the full backing of the heads of the security establishment,” he said. “Personally, I am convinced that the decision to remain in the government under the conditions we set was the right one.”
Since members of the committee representing the Knesset are elected in a secret ballot by parliamentary majority, it would be difficult in the event of Otzma Yehudit’s exit from the coalition to ensure another supporter of the judicial overhaul would replace Kroizer, a coalition source told The Times of Israel earlier this month.

In an interview with Channel 12 on Saturday evening after confirming his pending resignation, Ben Gvir claimed that Netanyahu, trying to persuade him not to resign, had suggested, among other things, that he could fire IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi and give Ben Gvir credit for the move. Ben Gvir has long criticized the army chief as insufficiently tough on Hamas.
Responding to Ben Gvir, Prime Minister’s Office said that he “wasn’t offered anything” and said his assertion was “a total lie.”
The national security minister contrasted his imminent resignation with the fact that others, such as Smotrich, who had threatened to quit were not doing so.
“I’m a man of principle,” Ben Gvir said, arguing that the agreement with Hamas was setting the stage for future kidnappings.
Last Thursday, Smotrich’s far-right Religious Zionism party reiterated its opposition to a ceasefire-hostage agreement in Gaza and insisted that its continued membership in the government hinged upon the war not ending without the complete military defeat of Hamas.
In a video statement on Saturday evening, Smotrich condemned the “terrible” deal and reiterated that he will “not sit in a government that, God forbid, will stop the war and not continue until complete victory over Hamas.” But he said his party is set to remain in the government, after Netanyahu agreed to a number of his demands.

“Unfortunately, we were unable to prevent this dangerous deal, but we insisted and were able to ensure, through a government decision, in the cabinet, and other ways, that the war will not end, in any way, without achieving its full goals — foremost among them the complete destruction of Hamas in Gaza,” he declared.
“We demanded and received a commitment to completely change the method of war,” he continued, including “through a gradual takeover of the entire Gaza Strip, the lifting of the restrictions imposed on us by the Biden administration, and full control of the Strip, so that humanitarian aid will not reach Hamas as it has until now.
The Prime Minister’s Office has not confirmed the details of the deal Smotrich claims to have made with Netanyahu.
However, a coalition source did confirm to The Times of Israel that Netanyahu provided Smotrich with a guarantee of restarting the war after the first phase — but that nothing was written down.
It was “all verbal,” the source stated, adding that discussions of what was promised were “mostly politics” given that “Trump already promised to lift the embargo/slow down of weapons” and “Rubio said that in a senate hearing last week that sanctions on settlers would be lifted.”
“Smotrich wants to take credit for the war restarting after phase one so he can make ben Gvir look like an idiot. Bibi said okay. It’s pretty much that simple,” the source added.