National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir warned on Monday that, if a controversial bill to impose the death penalty on terrorists who kill Israelis does not pass its first reading in the Knesset plenum within the next three weeks, his far-right Otzma Yehudit party will no longer consider itself obligated to vote with the coalition.
Addressing reporters ahead of his party’s weekly faction meeting in the Knesset on the opening day of the winter parliamentary session, Ben Gvir said that, with the release of the last 20 living hostages from Gaza last week, there are “no more excuses” not to advance the legislation, which he asserted would deter terrorism.
“As part of the deal signed with Hamas, unfortunately hundreds of murderous terrorists were released from prison. When terrorists remain alive, the terrorists outside are motivated to carry out kidnappings in order to free their Nazi brothers in future deals,” he said. “If they murder a Jew, they do not stay alive.”
“The time has come for the Likud to live up to [its] commitment,” he continued, reiterating his demand that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continue fighting the war in Gaza and “dismantle Hamas.”
Ben Gvir has a history of threatening his coalition partners and boycotting votes to advance his political and policy goals.
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The far-right minister’s statement served as an elaboration of a threat he made on Saturday evening, when he told Channel 12’s “Meet the Press” that he had given Netanyahu a deadline to dismantle Hamas and enact the death penalty for terrorists, threatening that if his conditions were not met, his party would quit the government.
Buses carrying Gazan detainees released from Israeli prisons under a hostage and ceasefire deal arrive outside the Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, on October 13, 2025. (Omar AL-QATTAA/AFP)
“What I want, and this is also what Netanyahu promised me, is the dismantlement of Hamas, and if he doesn’t dismantle Hamas, he knows very well what will happen,” Ben Gvir said in the interview, declining to say how much time he had given Netanyahu to comply with his demands.
Speaking with The Times of Israel following Ben Gvir’s press conference on Monday, Otzma Yehudit MK Limor Son Har-Melech emphasized that Ben Gvir had not given Netanyahu a hard deadline for leaving the government over the continuation of the war, and had “only spoken about the death penalty for terrorists.”
Ben Gvir recently threatened to bolt the government if Hamas “continues to exist” after the hostages are freed, stating that his party would not be a part of “a national defeat” and “eternal disgrace,” and would not agree to a situation in which the terrorist group is able to rebuild itself after the end of hostilities.
He was one of a small handful of ministers who voted against the first phase of the Gaza ceasefire deal, under which Palestinian prisoners were exchanged for hostages held by Hamas, and which US President Donald Trump has said will lead to a permanent end to the war. Earlier this year, Ben Gvir’s party quit the coalition for several months to protest the acceptance of a previous partial ceasefire-hostage deal that saw the release of 30 hostages and the return of eight bodies.
MK Limor Son Har-Melech attends a Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee meeting, July 18, 2024. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)
Following a deadly terror attack in Jerusalem last month, Otzma Yehudit announced that it intended to raise the death penalty issue in the Knesset again, with Hebrew media reporting that the far-right party believed the coalition had failed to advance the issue fast enough and the discussion needed to be expedited.
The Knesset National Security Committee subsequently voted to advance a bill by Har-Melech allowing courts to impose the death penalty on terrorists who kill Israelis, paving the way for the first of three plenum votes necessary for it to become law.
The legislation had long been stalled due to high-level opposition within the government and security services.
Ben Gvir said in September that he had been approached by “people in the Prime Minister’s Office” who asked him to postpone the death penalty discussion over concerns that it could complicate efforts to free the hostages, but had refused. Instead, he claimed at the time that the bill would “bring deterrence” and “advance the return of the hostages” while showing Hamas that “there is a price tag for what they did” on October 7.
Justice Minister Yariv Levin announced on Thursday that he is advancing legislation in the Knesset to establish a special criminal tribunal to try Gazans accused of carrying out massacres and atrocities on October 7, 2023, in a process that could result in death sentences being handed down to those convicted.
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