Ben Gvir says draft peace deal for Gaza 'unacceptable to Israel'

Itamar Ben Gvir, the far-right Israeli minister of national security, has rejected a draft peace deal in Gaza as "unacceptable to Israel". He said in a statement on Telegram that any "commitment to stop the assassinations" of Hamas members is "tantamount to agreeing to Hamas organizing for the next massacre". He said that "assassinations in Gaza must continue", as should the "encouragement" of Palestinian "emigration" from the strip. His comments follow a statement by Israel's former chief of staff and Benjamin Netanyahu's primary challenger in the upcoming elections, Gadi Eisenkot, which affirmed that any agreement that does not see “the destruction of Hamas’s military-governmental power or its dissolution … is a complete failure”. “The fact that the Prime Minister chooses not to present the agreement to the Israeli public raises major question marks as to whether Israel is a partner in it or whether an agreement was once again forced upon Israel without its involvement,” Eisenkot said in a post on X.