A series of senior Israeli officials resign in protest of the ceasefire and hostage release agreement

Reuters news agency reported on January 19 that Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who is also the head of the Zionist Party, threatened to resign from the coalition government if Israel stopped its war against Hamas in Gaza.

The same morning, the Times of Israel reported that National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and his far-right Otzma Yehudit party left the ruling coalition led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to carry out their threat to withdraw if the Israeli government agreed to a ceasefire agreement with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

In a statement, the party said three of its cabinet members, in addition to Mr Ben Gvir, Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu and Negev, Galilee and National Resilience Minister Yitzhak Wasserlauf, had submitted letters of resignation to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

In addition, MPs Zvika Fogel, Limor Son Har-Melech and Yitzhak Kroizer also resigned from the committees of which they were members.

“From this moment on, the Otzma Yehudit party is no longer a member of the (ruling) coalition,” the Otzma Yehudit party said in a statement.

The departure of the Otzma Yehudit party reduces the number of members in the Knesset of the ruling coalition led by Mr. Netanyahu, from 68 out of 120 lawmakers to 63.

But the number of members of the ruling coalition could also fall further to 62, depending on the complex arrangements that must now be resolved between Mr Ben Gvir's party and Mr Smotrich's party, who ran together in the 2022 election before splitting.

In a letter to Prime Minister Netanyahu, Mr. Ben Gvir boasted of “the remarkable achievements under Mr. Netanyahu’s leadership” but complained about what the politician said was “the prime minister’s surrender to terrorism, which crosses all ideological lines.”

The ceasefire agreement is “a complete victory for terrorism,” Ben Gvir declared, adding that “we have no intention of overthrowing the government led by you (Netanyahu), but in ideological matters we will vote according to our views and conscience.”

“We will not return to the government negotiating table without achieving a complete victory over Hamas and fully implementing the goals of the war,” party leader Otzma Yehudit added.

The statement did not mention Otzma Yehudit MP Almog Cohen, who has repeatedly voted with the coalition in recent weeks, leaving the politician's current status unclear.

Israeli media reported that lawmaker Cohen, who did not attend the party's press conference on the evening of January 15, where the Otzma Yehudit party announced that it would withdraw from the government if the cabinet approved the ceasefire-hostage exchange deal, would likely remain a member of the ruling coalition.

With this reality, even without Ben Gvir's Otzma Yehudit party, Prime Minister Netanyahu's ruling coalition would still retain a majority in the Knesset, but this majority would be narrower than before.

In a related development, the Israeli Prime Minister's Office said the ceasefire in Gaza agreed between Israel and the Hamas Islamist movement took effect at 11:15 local time (09:15 GMT) on January 19, or 16:15 the same day Vietnam time.

The Israeli Prime Minister's Office also said it had received a list of Gaza hostages to be released and that Israeli security forces were examining the "details". Hamas also announced the names of the three hostages on its Telegram channel.

The release of these hostages will be carried out after 14:00 GMT on January 19. In addition to the three hostages whose names are on the list that Hamas sent to Israel, four more hostages will be released in the next seven days.