Report: Ben Gvir mocked by cabinet colleagues for overzealous demands to punish Gaza

At a security cabinet meeting Saturday night, ministers pushed to impose harsher measures on the Gaza Strip in order to pressure Hamas, while taunting National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir for what they perceived as his unrealistic demands, Channel 12 reported Sunday.

According to the report, at one point the far-right minister called for all electricity from Israel to Gaza to be cut off, telling the cabinet, “We must black out all the electric lines in Gaza.”

According to the report, IDF Maj. Gen. Ghassan Alian, the head of COGAT (Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories), informed him that Israel was no longer supplying any electricity to Gaza, and that residents were mostly using private generators.

Ben Gvir then called for Israel to take out generators and the internal electric grid in order to “turn their lights out.”

National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi mocked Ben Gvir, according to Channel 12, telling Alian that he should “turn off the sun.”

Transportation Minister Miri Regev added, “He wants to give them the ‘Plague of Darkness’ before Passover,” a reference to the approaching Jewish festival next month that recalls the Biblical Ten Plagues visited on ancient Egypt.

On March 9, Energy Minister Eli Cohen instructed the Israel Electric Corporation to immediately cut off all supply of electricity to the Gaza Strip, in a bid to pile pressure on Hamas to release the remaining hostages it abducted during its deadly October 7, 2023, attack.

The cabinet meeting came amid a return to fighting in Gaza after the collapse of a January ceasefire that had halted 15 months of war.

Embattled Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar did not attend the meeting, during which efforts to free hostages from Gaza were discussed, an Israeli official told The Times of Israel.

The full cabinet voted to fire Bar earlier this month, but he remains in his post for the time being amid a legal battle over his dismissal.

Mossad director David Barnea was not there either, according to the official.

Bar and Barnea previously headed Israel’s negotiating team for ceasefire talks, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed them aside last month and instead installed confidant Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer as point man for the mediate talks. Nonetheless, it was unusual for Bar and Barnea to not participate.

At the meeting, Dermer told the ministers, “We are seeing changes in Hamas’s stance [on a hostage release deal] because of the military pressure,” according to Kan news.

“Hamas blinked,” Dermer said, according to the report.

Netanyahu insists that under the current conditions, only military and diplomatic pressure combined can push Hamas into releasing hostages, an approach that has been heavily criticized by many families of captives, who instead want a sweeping ceasefire deal that brings everyone home in one stroke. Elements of the cabinet, among them Ben Gvir, reject that approach, insisting the war must go on until Hamas is destroyed.

Relatives of hostages told Dermer on Sunday they feel their loved ones have been placed last on the government’s list of priorities. In a letter penned to the minister and published by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, the relatives of more than a dozen hostages accused him of leaving them “in complete darkness” and failing to update them about any progress — or lack thereof — in negotiations.

“Minister Dermer, when you were appointed as head of the negotiating team, we were promised that this would help reach a breakthrough on a new agreement,” they wrote. “In reality, more than a month has passed, and there is no progress in sight.”

“The hostages are in immediate danger — the living are in danger of death and the dead are in danger of vanishing,” they warned.

“Minister Dermer, the responsibility and authority are in your hands. Do not leave the negotiating room until you achieve a comprehensive agreement,” they wrote, calling for the remaining 59 hostages, living and dead, to be returned in one swoop rather than a lengthy deal.

Appealing for Dermer to meet with them, the families lamented they felt that they “have been forgotten in the dark.”

“When you’re not in the negotiating room… meet with us, all the families of the hostages, immediately. Pay attention to us,” they urged. “Our loved ones have no time. We have no time.”

The letter was signed by dozens of relatives of 21 hostages, both living and dead.

Channel 12 reported last week that Dermer has yet to meet with the family of a single hostage or present his own initiative for a deal since taking over the negotiating team last month. His office denied the report and said he met with four families in the last two weeks, but declined to reveal their names.

Among the signatories were the children of Manny Godard, who said Saturday that the military had tried and failed to recover their father’s body from Gaza.

It was also signed by freed hostage Iair Horn, who was forced to leave his brother Eitan behind in Gaza when he was released from Hamas captivity on February 15.

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