PM's far-right allies silent on Security Council resolution

In English only, Netanyahu welcomes UN vote backing ‘Trump’s vision’ for Gaza

PM says plan ‘will lead to peace and prosperity’ in the region; Lapid: He buckled ‘under American pressure’; Herzog: Historic move ‘requires responsibility and restraint’

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed on Tuesday the UN Security Council’s vote a day earlier to adopt a US-sponsored resolution authorizing the establishment of an International Stabilization Force in Gaza under US President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan.

The prime minister’s opponents, meanwhile, mocked him for issuing his statement only in English, suggesting he was afraid of the critical response from his coalition partners.

The UN resolution states that the ISF will help secure Gaza’s borders, protect civilians, secure humanitarian aid, train Palestinian police and — most critically to Israel — “ensure the process of demilitarizing” the Strip. To the right’s chagrin, it also endorses the plan as a “credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood.”

In a post on the official prime ministerial X account, Netanyahu praised Trump’s plan and the UNSC’s endorsement of it, writing in English that the framework “will lead to peace and prosperity because it insists upon full demilitarization, disarmament, and the deradicalization of Gaza.”

Netanyahu asserted that, “true to President Trump’s vision,” the plan will “lead to further integration of Israel and its neighbors as well as expansion of Abraham Accords.”

The prime minister added that under Trump’s plan, Israel expects to receive the remaining three deceased hostages in Gaza — Dror Or, Ran Gvili and Sudthisak Rinthalak — “with no delay,” and “to begin the process of disarming and demilitarizing the Gaza Strip and ending Hamas’s rule over Gaza.”

“President Trump’s breakthrough leadership will help lead the region to peace and prosperity and a lasting alliance with the United States,” Netanyahu said. “Israel extends its hand in peace and prosperity to all of our neighbors and calls on them to normalize relations with Israel and join us in expelling Hamas and its supporters from the region.”

Notably, Netanyahu did not issue a direct statement welcoming the approved resolution in Hebrew or on his personal accounts, against the backdrop of political tensions within his coalition over the resolution’s implication of future Palestinian statehood.

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid asserted in response to the resolution’s passage that Netanyahu only agreed to back the plan “under American pressure.”

Lapid added that “for years Netanyahu tried to separate Gaza from the West Bank, and from that grew the destructive policy of strengthening and funding Hamas while turning a blind eye to its armament.”

“It was a terrible strategic mistake, and it’s good that the Americans have put an end to it,” the opposition leader added. “The most right-wing government in the country’s history is officially abandoning annexation and setting out principles for cooperation with the Palestinian Authority.”

Trump’s 20-point plan, included as an annex to the UN resolution, asserts that “while Gaza re-development advances and when the Palestinian Authority reform program is faithfully carried out, the conditions may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood, which we recognize as the aspiration of the Palestinian people.”

The Democrats chairman Yair Golan said that his party welcomed “Trump’s decision to put an end to Netanyahu’s foolish and dangerous conception — the idea of ‘managing the conflict’ and that ‘Hamas is an asset.’”

He was referring to the policies of successive Netanyahu governments in the years leading up to the October 7, 2023, attack.

Golan posted a statement in Hebrew on X and then added a second one, “now in English, for Netanyahu.” He suggested that the prime minister is being “dragged along in fear, with his tail between his legs,” toward a regional political arrangement.

Headlines on the Channel 12, Walla and Ynet news sites on Tuesday also highlighted the prime minister’s decision to only publicly comment on the resolution in English.

Netanyahu’s far-right coalition allies — Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir — were silent Tuesday morning on the resolution’s passage.

Avigdor Liberman, head of the right-wing opposition party Yisrael Beytenu, criticized the resolution, writing that “what happened tonight at the UN is the result of mismanagement by the Israeli government.”

Liberman suggested that the UN resolution will lead to “a Palestinian state, a Saudi nuclear weapon, and F-35 jets to Turkey and Saudi Arabia. This is a sell-out of Israel’s security. The Middle East is changing, and not to our benefit.”

President Isaac Herzog hailed the UNSC’s approval of the US-sponsored resolution, calling it a “historic diplomatic achievement” that must advance progress toward “the day after” in Gaza and the wider region.

“I welcome last night’s UN Security Council decision, which supports and backs [Trump’s] plan,” Herzog said, speaking at a state memorial ceremony on Tuesday at the Mount Herzl military cemetery for soldiers who were killed in Israel’s 1956 Sinai Campaign.

“This is a historic diplomatic achievement by President Trump — an achievement that can and must lead us toward ‘the day after’ — in Gaza and in the entire region,” he continued.

“This step — now backed by a Security Council resolution — has already significantly advanced the return of the hostages, and it must continue with the dismantling of Hamas’s weapons and the removal of the organization from any position of governing power,” Herzog said.

“A historic and sensitive time such as this requires responsibility and restraint,” the president continued, before condemning a group of Jewish extremists who clashed with police and attacked a West Bank Palestinian village on Monday night.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.