Itamar Ben-Gvir stepped down as Benjamin Netanyahu’s national security minister in protest at the planned released of Palestinian prisoners.
Israel’s far-right national security minister resigned from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Cabinet in fury over the Gaza ceasefire deal – warning it will “destroy all of Israel’s achievements.”
The resignation of Itamar Ben-Gvir does not threaten the ceasefire, but it does weaken Netanyahu’s governing coalition. If other far-right lawmakers leave the government — as Ben-Gvir has encouraged them to do — the prime minister could lose his parliamentary majority, potentially forcing early elections.
It was the latest act of defiance by the 48-year-old ultra-nationalist settler leader who transformed himself over the decades from an outlaw and provocateur into one of Israel’s most influential politicians.
The ceasefire will pause the war and free dozens of hostages held by militants in Gaza. Ben-Gvir opposed the deal because it requires Israel to free hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and to withdraw troops from Gaza’s southern border with Egypt — and because it leaves open the possibility of Hamas staying in power in Gaza.
Ahead of the resignation, he said the ceasefire was “reckless” and would “destroy all of Israel’s achievements.”
In his Cabinet post, Ben-Gvir oversaw the country’s police force. He used his influence to encourage Netanyahu to press ahead with the war in Gaza and recently boasted that he had blocked past efforts to reach a ceasefire.
He also has paid multiple visits to Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site — the contested hilltop compound that houses the Al-Aqsa Mosque — including last month. In one such visit in July, he said he came to pray for the return of the hostages “but without a reckless deal, without surrendering.”
The move, while legal, was seen as a provocation, violated a longstanding ban on Jewish prayer there, and threatened to disrupt months of sensitive negotiations. The site is revered by Jews as the Temple Mount.
Ben-Gvir has been convicted eight times for offenses that include racism and supporting a terrorist organization. As a teen, his views were so extreme that the army banned him from compulsory military service.
Ben-Gvir gained notoriety in his youth as a follower of the late racist rabbi Meir Kahane. He first became a national figure when he broke a hood ornament off then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s car in 1995.
“We got to his car, and we’ll get to him too,” he said, just weeks before Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish extremist opposed to his peace efforts with the Palestinians.
Two years later, Ben-Gvir took responsibility for orchestrating a campaign of protests, including death threats, that forced Irish singer Sinead O’Connor to cancel a concert for peace in Jerusalem.
The political rise of Ben-Gvir was the culmination of years of efforts by the media-savvy lawmaker to gain legitimacy. But it also reflected a rightward shift in the Israeli electorate that brought his religious, ultranationalist ideology into the mainstream and diminished hopes for Palestinian independence.
