January 17, 2025 09:51 GMT
ISRAEL: Security Cabinet Starts Meeting On Gaza Ceasefire Deal
ISRAEL
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The Security Cabinet is meeting to sign off on the Gaza ceasefire-for-hostages deal after PM Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed that his negotiating team in Doha had approved a final agreement. After the Security Cabinet approves the deal it will then move to the full Cabinet on the evening of 18 Jan. So far the two ultranationalist parties in gov't, Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir's Otzma Yehudit (OY) and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich's Religious Zionism (RZ) have both raised objections.
- Ben-Gvir has said that if the deal is approved he and his party will quit the gov't, but that they would not seek to remove Netanyahu as PM. The loss of OY's six Knesset members (MKs) would see Netanyahu's coalition lose its majority. Ben-Gvir said his party would return to gov't if the war in Gaza is resumed.
- Reports suggest that Smotrich's RZ will vote against the deal, but will not quit the gov't yet. N12 reports Smotrich saying that "without a full return to war - we will resign," indicating that if the IDF does not resume its offensive against Hamas at the end of the six-week first phase RZ will pull out of gov't. Such a move, combined with OY's withdrawal, would see the Netanyahu gov't lose its majority in the Knesset.
- With Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikl from Netanyahu's Likud also threatening to resign over the deal there remain sizeable risks to the stability of Netanyahu's gov't as the extremely precarious ceasefire deal comes into force from 1600 local time on Sunday 19 Jan/.
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