Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir warned on Sunday that the renewed ceasefire with Hezbollah allows the Iranian-backed terror group “to rebuild and grow stronger in preparation for another October 7,” referring to the Hamas-led invasion of southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
“My red line is when our soldiers are being killed and our civilians are under attack—this cannot continue,” Ben-Gvir said in an interview with Army Radio radio on Sunday morning.
Four Israel Defense Forces soldiers were killed in Southern Lebanon overnight Thursday when a Hezbollah drone struck their tank. Israeli forces struck more than 80 terrorist targets and killed dozens of Hezbollah operatives following the attack.
Jerusalem and Beirut renewed the fragile ceasefire later on Friday following U.S. mediation efforts.
Ben-Gvir, who leads the Otzma Yehudit Party, said that while he “loves” U.S. President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should tell the American president the Israel Defense Forces “cannot cease fire in Lebanon.”
“Mr. President, you are not the one who goes to the shiva and speaks with the younger siblings,” the right-wing minister said in remarks directed at Trump. “You are not the one who bears the price. We love you, you are a true partner and friend, and we embrace you, but the answer is no.”
Responding to comments by U.S. Vice President JD Vance last week that some saw as an implied threat of an arms embargo, Ben-Gvir said the Jewish state had previously faced periods when the United States refused to supply it with weapons.
“If we had listened to them, there would have been no State of Israel, no Yom Kippur War and no Six-Day War,” he declared.
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich (Religious Zionism Party) in an interview that aired on Saturday night said the Oct. 7 massacre revealed Iranian plans “whose existence we did not know about.”
Tehran had plotted a “simultaneous invasion by the Nukhba Force, by the Radwan Force and by 35,000 fighters from pro-Iranian militias from Syria—who trained for 10 years in the Syrian civil war, and who are stationed in Iraq as well—who wanted to invade through the eastern border, together with Judea and Samaria, together with Israel’s Arabs and with thousands and tens of thousands of missiles launched simultaneously from all fronts,” he said.
The finance minister told Channel 14 that he had submitted a classified memo to Israel’s Cabinet on Oct. 6, 2023, urging Netanyahu to “initiate a war against Hezbollah, and then against Hamas.”
“It almost makes your skin crawl. God forbid that the [war] arenas would unite—that is an existential danger to the State of Israel,” he added.
Smotrich said he had decided to remain in Netanyahu’s government and support the ceasefire-for-hostages deals with Hamas in Gaza to to allow the military campaigns against Iran and Hezbollah to go forward.
“When the government falls, there is no strike on Iran. And Iran, by the end of 2026, would have nuclear weapons and 10,000 ballistic missiles, posing an existential threat to the State of Israel,” he explained.
Trump on June 17 signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Tehran, halting the joint U.S.-Israeli military operation that started on Feb. 28 with the strike that killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The MoU, which launched 60 days of negotiations in Iran’s nuclear program in return for sanctions relief, calls for the “immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon.”
