Fearing for their seats? Ben Gvir claims: eight senior Likud members asked to join Otzma Yehudit

Minister of National Security and chairman of Otzma Yehudit Itamar Ben Gvir revealed this morning (Sunday) that eight Knesset members from Likud, including four sitting ministers, approached him and asked to be integrated into the Otzma Yehudit list ahead of the elections. In an interview with 103FM, Ben Gvir said that the requests came ahead of the Likud primaries, against the backdrop of the concern of some MKs and ministers for their status on the list.

The remarks were made a day before the Likud party primaries:

"Four sitting ministers and sitting MKs approached me to reserve spots for them."

According to him, those who approached him wanted to move to Otzma Yehudit in light of its strengthening in the polls: "They see the polls of Otzma, they saw how strong we are and they wanted to join."

Ben Gvir explained that he rejected the requests and clarified that he does not intend to turn the Otzma Yehudit list into an alternative path for Likud members. "I also have many friends from school in Likud, maybe I will put them on the list too. It is not the same thing. Likud is Likud, Otzma is Otzma. I wish them success in Likud," he said.

Later in the interview, Ben Gvir criticized the policy of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and called for increasing the pace of targeted killings and attacks against terrorist elements:

"There are targeted killings, it is not that they stopped the targeted killings completely, but excuse me, we need to bomb them. As far as I am concerned, the soldiers are a red line."

Ben Gvir called on Netanyahu to harden the policy also towards the American administration: "Prime Minister, we need to return to targeted killings everywhere. We need to tell Donald Trump: our red line is that our soldiers are wounded. I am not prepared for a finger or a hair of our soldier to be harmed."