The head of the Israeli opposition supports the government of Netanyahu to conclude a hostage agreement

First on Fox: Two years since horrible events of October 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists attacked Israel and killed 1,200 men, women and children, before taking 251 other people in the Gaza Strip, there is still no hostage contract and the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces a possible collapse.

Netanyahu found an unlikely ally in the former Prime Minister and Opposition Head, Yair Lapid, who extended a “security net” to the conservative chief this week in a decision to secure the government while negotiations with Hamas remain underway.

“Nothing is more important than concluding this agreement, bringing our hostages home,” said Lapid in an interview with Fox News Digital.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin speaks to US President Donald Trump at a meeting at the White House Oval Office on April 7, 2025 in Washington. (Images Kevin Dietsch / Getty)

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The need for political support of Lapid intervenes as right leaders in the Netanyahu coalition, the Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir and the Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich, repeatedly criticized the acceptance by Netanyahu of the peace plan of President Donald Trump with Hamas and threatened to leave the coalition in many points in 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 which granted religious students a pass for the expired military conscription.

The move left Netanyahu’s coalition in control of only 50 of the 120 seats at the Knesset.

“Now, he depends completely on the extreme alt-roof in his government which says no to any agreement (with Hamas),” said Lapid.

When he was asked how much he thought it was that the special elections would be triggered once the parliament returns from his fall break on October 19, Lapid said “most likely”.

It is unlikely that a special election occurs earlier than February or March 2026, explained Lapid, pointing to an designated period which makes it possible to campaign in Israel, if the Knesset triggers an early electoral cycle by November – barely seven months earlier than the elections of October 2026 previously planned.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid addresses the media outside a polling station in the coastal city of Israel in Tel Aviv after voting in the country’s fifth election in four years on November 1, 2022. (Jack Guez / AFP via Getty Images)))

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Lapid believes that the Israeli public will favor a more centrist government which would include both the right and the left, a decision that would always favor Israeli security, but would also ensure that there is an end of war in Gaza and repairs are made to the international position of Jerusalem.

“If there is one thing of which I am sorry, (it is) the fact that no one in government has the political courage to get up and to say … It is a just war, we do what must be done to protect us, but we are sorry for each child who loses his life,” said Lapid. “Children should not die in adult wars.”

“As Jews, as human beings, as people who believe in Judeo-Christian morality and morality, it is heartbreaking,” he added.

Lapid said this failure of the current government not only led to ambiguity with regard to Israel’s strategy in the fight against Hamas, he fueled what he said to be the media and false reports, and this cost Israel dear in terms of international support, even among “groups that have traditionally supported Israel”.

The head of the opposition described a meeting he had with Netanyahu on October 7, 2023, in which he declared that the Prime Minister had appeared “gray and tired and all of a sudden”.

The demonstrators hold photos of hostages while they walk during a rally calling on the Israeli government to sign an agreement to release the hostages held in the Gaza Strip, on August 26, 2025 in Tel Aviv, in Israel. (Images Amir Levy / Getty)

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“I said something during this meeting which later became a cliché – I said:” Prime Minister, it is the worst day for the Jewish people from the Holocaust.

“What we have to do is form a government of unity,” he said. “You have to get rid of the extremists of your government, and we can create a government unit because we have in front of us, a challenge that is unprecedented with everything you, or me, have never seen.”

Lapid said Netanyahu was “reluctant” to continue this path.

“Until this day, I’m sorry for that. I thought it was the right thing to do, and I always think it was the right thing to do,” he added.

Netanyahu spent 15 years as Israeli Prime Minister, serving for the first time from March 2009 to June 2021, before resuming the first job in December 2022.

Lapid described his long term as “admirable” and emblematic of his “resilience”.

“But in other respects, I can see now, to politely say the advantages of the limits of two terms that you have in the United States,” he added.

The hostage families protest, demanding the release of the captivity of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, in the place known as Square Outages in Tel Aviv, Israel, Saturday August 2, 2025. (AP photo / Ariel Schalit)

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The opposition chief said he thought that the Israelis are ready for a “unity government” in response to Netanyahu’s right -wing coalition, noting that he thinks that the next elections will be “interesting”.

“It will go through political lines, and it will be based on hope,” he added in reference to the block he builds. “I know it looks like big words, but I tell you, that’s what we need right now.

“It was the most difficult two years in everyone’s life. And the first time for a very long time, the fragility of Israeli society was tangible to us. And we have to rebuild,” added Lapid.

Netanyahu’s office did not answer Fox News Digital questions when the report is published.