Israeli coalition lawmakers Amit Halevi (Likud Party) and Limor Son Har-Melech (Otzma Yehudit) said they would not attend U.S. President Donald Trump’s Knesset address on Monday in protest of the ceasefire deal his administration mediated with the Hamas terror group in Gaza.
“Even those who believe we were forced to sign this agreement should not celebrate it,” Halevi said in remarks cited by local media on Sunday.
“I am deeply moved by every hostage who returns to their family,” he said. “My heart is with the soldiers and civilians who long to return to normal life. We can certainly speak about the immense domestic and international pressures that led us here, but we must not celebrate,” he stated.
However, “we are leaving Hamas and its neo-Nazi infrastructure intact, at the height of its power, while freeing thousands of arch-murderers who will rejoin its ranks and continue their plan to destroy Israel,” Halevi said.
“We must tell the public the truth—bow our heads in pain and humility in light of this military failure, learn its lessons and plan our next steps to achieve true victory,” he stressed. “We should not hold a Knesset session dressed up as a ‘victory’ celebration that is, in reality, an illusion.”
‘A shameful agreement’
Son-Har Melech wrote in a post on X that while U.S. President Donald Trump “presented the current deal as a peace agreement,” it is, in fact, a “shameful agreement.
“The thing missing from it the most is peace and security,” she wrote. “We are already seeing Hamas reorganizing in the Gaza Strip, planning to regain control the moment that our forces withdraw. The residents of Gaza stand on the ruins of their homes while praising Hamas, and we understand that the next round is only a matter of time. Even the most optimistic know there is no real security here,” she wrote.
“I am neither able nor willing to join in the applause,” Son-Har Melech declared in her post on Sunday night. “Not for the U.S. president who is selling the Israeli people an illusion of peace and security, nor for the right, which has idealized this agreement as if it were an achievement.”
Separately, Avi Maoz, the sole lawmaker of the hard-right Noam Party, who withdrew from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition earlier this year, said he would also be skipping Trump’s address.
“I will not participate as an extra in the ‘festive’ performance at the Knesset plenum tomorrow,” he wrote on Facebook. “You have to be completely blind to believe that Trump’s initiative turned out well.”
Trump is scheduled to touch down in Israel on Monday morning for a four-hour visit that includes meetings with Netanyahu, other officials and hostage families, followed by his first-ever address to the Knesset.
