TEL AVIV: Israeli former defense minister Benny Gantz on Saturday called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to forge a unity government along with members of the opposition in a bid to help release the hostages held in Gaza.
Netanyahu’s coalition government depends on support from far-right members who oppose ending the war and making any deal with Palestinian group Hamas, whose October 2023 attack on Israel sparked the Gaza war.
Gantz, a rival of Netanyahu who nonetheless joined his government in the early days of the war, proposed a temporary coalition that would side-step far-right parties and strike a hostage release deal.
“I am here on behalf of the hostages who have no voice. I am here for the soldiers who are crying out, and whom no one in this government is listening to,” Gantz told a televised press conference.
“The duty of our state is first and foremost to save the lives of Jews and all citizens,” added Gantz, calling on fellow opposition party leaders Yair Lapid and Avigdor Lieberman to also consider the offer.
Both opposition chief Lapid and Lieberman have previously rejected joining any Netanyahu-led government.
Netanyahu’s coalition faces a risk of collapse after the parliament’s summer recess ends, following the loss of support from ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties over legislation seeking to draft students of religious seminaries into the military.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, a far-right member of Netanyahu’s ruling coalition who could be sidelined if Gantz’s plan succeeds, was quick to dismiss it.
“Right-wing voters chose a right-wing policy — not Gantz’s policy, not a centrist government, not surrender deals with Hamas, but yes to absolute victory,” Ben Gvir said in a statement.
The government has faced increasing domestic pressure to secure an end to the war in Gaza, with mass protests calling for a deal that would see the hostages released.
Out of 251 hostages seized during Hamas’s 2023 attack, 49 are still held in Gaza including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.
Palestinian militants also hold the remains of an Israeli soldier killed in a 2014 war.
The demonstrations in Israel have intensified since Netanyahu’s security cabinet approved plans earlier this month to expand the offensive in Gaza and seize the Palestinian territory’s largest city.
The move has sparked fears that the onslaught would exacerbate already dire conditions on the ground after more than 22 months of war.