Opposition Leader Yair Lapid announced today (Monday) that it's time for the war to end and for "quiet to return to our lives" in a statement to his Knesset faction.
Lapid said that "after the two most terrible years in our history, the war needs to end, quiet needs to return to our lives."
He then said what Israel needs to focus on now: "We need to reorganize the map of the Middle East, that's also a long process. We need to go for the Saudi deal: to build a regional coalition against Iran, to create a governmental alternative to Gaza."
State Camp party leader Benny Gantz, whose party is set to be the largest non-Netanyahu party in the Knesset next election according to polls, has also insisted on Israel working on finding a "diplomatic path" to defeating Hamas and ensuring it can no longer have military or governing power.
Earlier today, Finance Minister and Religious Zionism party leader Bezalel Smotrich said that defeating Hamas takes precedence over freeing the hostages in terms of how the government prioritized them in deciding on war aims.
Smotrich also said that if a normalization agreement with Saudi Arabia leads to progress towards a Palestinian state, "even a millimeter," then "it won't happen, period."
Smotrich nevertheless explained that he refused to quit the government and have his party leave the coalition like Itamar Ben Gvir did with his Otzmah Yehudit party, as this would lead to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government being dependent on the votes of the opposition to pass the deal.
What's worse, he said, such dependence could ultimately lead to an election bringing Lapid and Gantz to power in their own coalition, which would mean a complete end to the war, something Smotrich strongly opposes and which he has insisted on Prime Minister Netanyahu promising not to do for him to stay in the government.
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