Opposition leader and Yesh Atid chair MK Yair Lapid slammed Blue and White party leader Benny Gantz’s proposition of forming a temporary government in a KAN News interview on Monday morning.
Gantz’s unity government would have only two goals before dissolving in time for formal elections: returning all remaining hostages and passing an official haredi (ultra-Orthodox) draft law.
Lapid said there was "no need to sit in government alongside [Itamar] Ben-Gvir and [Bezalel] Smotrich" in order to reach a hostage deal and reaffirmed that his offer to provide Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with a “safety net” is still valid.
He went on, claiming that Hamas has agreed to a deal outline, but the sitting government is “occupied with nonsense and the hostages are dying.”
Avigdor Liberman's rejection
Lapid’s response follows Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman’s similar rejection of Gantz’s proposal on Sunday night.
Liberman called the potential government “a pitiful show” and a “waste of time” during an interview with KAN, claiming that it “isn’t a move meant to save the hostages, but to save Gantz.”
Netanyahu has yet to officially respond to the proposal. However, KAN reported on Saturday night that the Prime Minister's Office told coalition members that Netanyahu has no plans to "dismantle the bloc for [Benny] Gantz."
Keshet Neev contributed to this report.