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00:00The Israel-Hamas peace deal, that would be a declared peace for a short phase, some six
00:09weeks and an exchange of some 33 hostages still being held, Israeli hostages still being
00:14held by Hamas in exchange for Palestinian prisons and Israeli jails.
00:18We heard from Israel's National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gavir, within the last hour saying
00:24that he would resign if this goes ahead.
00:27He urged Benjamin Netanyahu to pull out of the deal which he says only whets the appetite
00:31of Hamas.
00:32Now, before that, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that he's confident the
00:37Gaza ceasefire agreed by Israel and Hamas will begin on Sunday, as is predicted, despite
00:43last-minute glitches.
00:44From Israel's perspective, this reads as a delay in voting on the deal by Netanyahu,
00:49until, as he puts it, Hamas accepts all the terms and conditions.
00:54Then came Ben-Gavir with his statement, which was rather incendiary, to say the least.
00:59Let's bring in Noga Tarnopolsky, Noga, of course, our correspondent observing all matters
01:04for us in Jerusalem.
01:06Noga, welcome back to the studio.
01:09Your contribution is always needed and never more than now, because with what we're hearing,
01:13it lends more confusion to what happens next.
01:17That's right.
01:18This is a moment of high drama and major confusion all around, and in fact, to even begin to
01:23explain to you what's happening, I have to engage it in a little bit of Israeli Kremlinology.
01:30Itamar Ben-Gavir is probably the most controversial politician in Israeli history.
01:36Before Prime Minister Netanyahu made him the Minister for National Security, he was considered
01:41a subject of police investigations.
01:43The guy's been convicted 13 times of hate crimes and terror.
01:49He was Benjamin Netanyahu's choice because Netanyahu himself is on trial and needed to
01:55form a government with anyone he could.
01:58Now he has reverted to old form, to being a bomb thrower on the eve of this international
02:04agreement to which Benjamin Netanyahu already agreed, and to which we still think he probably
02:10has a majority in the cabinet.
02:12Itamar Ben-Gavir, a man without whom Netanyahu may not be able to rule into the future, says,
02:18I quit.
02:19What he's doing is pushing Netanyahu into an almost impossible corner by saying, if
02:26this ceasefire agreement is in fact adopted by Israel, I quit.
02:31And I will only return to the government if war is relaunched.
02:35However, if Israel relaunches the war, it will be in violation of the same agreement
02:42it just agreed to.
02:44And the other danger coming down the pike is that finance minister Bezalel Smotrich
02:50still has not decided whether or not he will join Ben-Gavir in this rebel action.
02:58So the situation then, we're expecting from what was said 24 hours ago for this deal to
03:03come into operation on January the 19th.
03:06As it stands right now, we're waiting for Israel to vote on this on Saturday.
03:10And of course, without looking into a crystal ball, and even if you do that, you still can't
03:14tell what will happen, can you?
03:17I really can't.
03:18It's very complicated.
03:19So the vote was supposed to have taken place already today.
03:22Then we thought, we assumed it would take place tomorrow.
03:25Now again, we're guessing that it would take place Saturday night.
03:29It's important to mention Netanyahu at no point actually scheduled this cabinet vote.
03:34He may have had more of an inkling than we did that he was in real political trouble.
03:39All this said, I want to say, Benjamin Netanyahu is not in imminent danger of losing power
03:45because the opposition, the centrist leader, Yair Lapid, has reiterated his offer, saying
03:54to Netanyahu that so long as a hostage release deal is in place, he as leader of the opposition
04:01will offer Netanyahu a parliamentary safety net, meaning that Netanyahu will not be subject
04:09to a non-confidence vote in parliament if this deal does go through and hostages in
04:14fact are released.
04:15He would lose his majority, but he wouldn't lose power, but he would emerge really a crippled
04:21prime minister.
04:24So with the help of Yair Lapid, Benjamin Netanyahu might yet carry the day regarding this deal.
04:30Nourga, thank you very much indeed for watching for developments, of course.
04:34It is far from a done deal, as Nourga was saying.
04:37It goes to a vote by the security cabinet in Israel on Saturday, and of course we're
04:43following all developments on the situation.