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FIRST ON FOX: Two years since the horrific events of Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists attacked Israel and killed 1,200 men, women and children, before they took 251 others into the Gaza Strip, there is still no hostage deal and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is facing possible collapse.
Netanyahu has found an unlikely ally in former prime minister and leader of the opposition, Yair Lapid, who extended a “security net” to the conservative leader this week in a move to secure the government as negotiations with Hamas remain ongoing.
“Nothing is more important than making this deal, bringing our hostages back home,” Lapid said in an interview with Fox News Digital.
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The need for Lapid’s political backing comes as right-wing leaders in Netanyahu’s coalition, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, have repeatedly criticized Netanyahu’s acceptance of President Donald Trump’s peace plan with Hamas and threatened to leave the coalition at numerous points over the last year.
Netanyahu’s coalition lost its majority in the Israeli parliament in July when two ultra-Orthodox parties left their ministerial posts after an exemption that granted religious students a pass for military conscription expired.
The move left Netanyahu’s coalition in control of just 50 of the 120 seats in the Knesset.
“Now he’s totally dependent on the extreme alt-right within his government that says no to any deal [with Hamas],” Lapid explained.
When asked how likely he thought it was that special elections would be triggered once parliament returns from its autumn break on Oct. 19, Lapid said, “very likely.”
A special election is unlikely to happen sooner than February or March 2026, Lapid explained, pointing to a designated time frame that allows for campaigning in Israel, should the Knesset trigger an early election cycle by November – just seven months sooner than the previously scheduled October 2026 elections.
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Lapid believes the Israeli public will favor a more centrist government that would encompass both the right and left, a move that would still prioritize Israeli security, but also ensure there is an end to the war in Gaza and repairs are made to Jerusalem’s international standing.
“If there’s one thing I’m sorry about, [it] is the fact that nobody in the government has the political courage to stand up and say…this is a just war, we are doing what needs to be done in order to protect ourselves, but we are sorry for every child that loses his life,” Lapid said. “Children should not die in grownups’ wars.”
“As Jews, as human beings, as people who believe in Judeo-Christian traditions and morality, it’s heartbreaking,” he added.
Lapid said this failure of the current government not only led to ambiguity when it came to Israel’s strategy in countering Hamas, it fueled what he said is media bias and false reporting, and it cost Israel dearly in terms of international support, even among “groups that traditionally supported Israel.”
The opposition leader described a meeting he had with Netanyahu on Oct. 7, 2023, in which he said the prime minister appeared “gray and tired and old all of a sudden.”
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“I said something at that meeting that later on became a cliché – I said, “Prime Minister, this is the worst day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust.
“What we need to do, is form a unity government,” he said. “You have to get rid of the extremists in your government, and we can create a unity of government because we have opposite us, a challenge that is unparalleled to anything you, or I, have ever seen.”
Lapid said Netanyahu was “reluctant” to pursue this route.
“Until this day, I’m sorry about this. I thought it was the right thing to do, and I still think it was the right thing to do,” he added.
Netanyahu has spent 15 years as Israel’s prime minister, first serving from March 2009 to June 2021, before retaking the top job in December 2022.
Lapid described his lengthy tenure as “admirable” and emblematic of his “resilience.”
“But in other ways, I can see now, to say politely, the benefits of the two-term limits that you have in the United States,” he added.
The opposition leader said he thinks Israelis are ready for a “unity government” in response to Netanyahu’s hard-right coalition, noting that he thinks the upcoming elections will be “interesting.”
“It’s going to cross political lines, and it’s going to be based on hope,” he added in reference to the bloc he is building. “I know it sounds like big words, but I’m telling you, it is what we need right now.
“It’s been the hardest two years of everybody’s lifetime. And the first time in a long, long time, the fragility of the Israeli society was tangible to us. And we need to rebuild,” Lapid added.
Netanyahu’s office did not respond to Fox News Digital’s questions by the time this report was published.
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