Israeli far right hits out at Benjamin Netanyahu over US-backed Gaza peace deal

Far-right political allies of Benjamin Netanyahu have attacked the Israeli premier for accepting a US-backed Gaza peace plan, with finance minister Bezalel Smotrich describing the deal as a “resounding diplomatic failure” that will “end in tears”.

The ultranationalist politician, a key member of Israel’s ruling coalition, said on Tuesday that the “celebrations” over the plan that was unveiled by US President Donald Trump and Netanyahu were “simply absurd”.

Smotrich described the deal as “a closing of eyes and turning our backs on all the lessons of October 7, and in my estimation, it will also end in tears. Our children will be forced to fight in Gaza again.”

Smotrich and national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir have threatened multiple times to bring down Netanyahu’s government if the war against Hamas was permanently halted before the group’s total defeat.

Ben-Gvir has yet to issue a public statement on the latest plan.

The 20-point plan promoted by Trump and accepted by Netanyahu on Monday calls for an immediate end to almost two years of war triggered by Hamas’s attack on October 7 2023.

It also involves the release within 72 hours of all the remaining Israeli hostages and a gradual withdrawal of Israel’s military from the shattered territory — but Israeli forces would remain in a “buffer zone” inside Gaza’s borders.

Israeli hardliners vehemently oppose the plan’s provisions for an international stabilisation force in Gaza, as well as a new local Palestinian police force and “international monitors” to ensure Hamas’s full disarmament.

They also reject the plan for a future role for the occupied West Bank-based Palestinian Authority in running Gaza once it is reformed.

Smotrich denounced “entrusting our security to foreigners and illusions that someone else will do the work for us”. Instead, he held out the prospect that Hamas’s “obstinacy will once again save us from ourselves” and allow Israel to resume its devastating military offensive.

Zvi Sukkot, another member of Smotrich’s Religious Zionism party, wrote on X that the proposals’ “entire rationale is based on an artificial differentiation between the [Gazan] population and Hamas, and they will supposedly give up the dream of murdering us in return for money”.

Hamas has yet to officially accept the latest proposal. An official briefed on talks said Qatar’s prime minister and Egypt’s intelligence chief met negotiators from the militant group in Doha and shared the plan on Monday.

The negotiators said they would review it in good faith and provide a response, the official said.

Speaking at the White House early on Tuesday, Trump told reporters that he would give Hamas “three or four days” to respond to the plan.

“We’re just waiting for Hamas, and Hamas is either going to be doing it or not,” the US president said, adding that if the group failed to agree to the proposal “it’s going to be a very sad end”.

Netanyahu and his allies have attempted to limit the growing far-right backlash to the deal since late on Monday night.

According to people familiar with the Israeli government’s thinking, the prime minister came to an agreement with Trump that the overall Gaza deal would not be brought to a vote for approval by the Israeli security cabinet.

Only the hostages-for-prisoners swap would be voted on, as is mandated under Israeli law and was the case in the previous two Gaza ceasefire agreements. The deal calls for the release of nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

Political analysts suggest that if Hamas does indeed sign up to the agreement, it could ultimately lead to the Israeli government’s dissolution and early elections.

The long-serving premier has been fighting to keep his coalition together and stave off new elections, given his lagging poll numbers in the wake of Hamas’s October 7 attack and two years of war.

But the next elections are set for October 2026 at the latest, and Netanyahu’s coalition was rocked by a separate political crisis this summer concerning ultra-Orthodox military conscription.

Two ultra-Orthodox parties left the coalition in July as parliament went into recess, costing Netanyahu his parliamentary majority.

Israeli officials and analysts maintain that the deciding factor behind Monday’s deal was Trump’s push for an end to the war in Gaza.

Netanyahu said in a Facebook video message from Washington that he had “turned the tables” on Hamas, isolating the group internationally.

He claimed that “the entire world, including the Arab and Muslim world” had accepted Israel’s maximalist conditions for ending the war, including keeping the Israeli military deployed inside “most of Gaza”.

Netanyahu also said he had not agreed to the creation of a Palestinian state, even though the proposal refers to a “credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood”.

Netanyahu’s cabinet secretary Yossi Fuchs added on X that conditions for reform placed on the Palestinian Authority, which governs parts of the occupied West Bank, “will never be fulfilled”.

His comments suggested that the body would never again be allowed to take charge of Gaza.

Israeli opposition politicians have expressed unanimous support for the deal and the return of the remaining 48 hostages held in Gaza, 20 of whom are still believed to be alive.

Yair Lapid, opposition leader, said on Monday that the Trump plan formed the “correct basis for a hostage deal and the end of the war”.

“The most prominent thing about the 20-point plan — it was actually already on the table a year and a half ago. Lives of hostages could have been saved, lives of [Israeli] fighters, thousands of wounded, the diplomatic crisis,” he added on Tuesday.

Additional reporting by Steff Chávez in Washington