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The long-term ceasefire between Hamas and Israel that has ended over seven weeks of bloodshed in the Gaza Strip has exposed a split within Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling coalition.
The truce deal, effective since 16:00 GMT on Tuesday, was accepted by the Israeli premier after consultations with his Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon.
However, he did not put the decision to vote in his eight-member security cabinet, a move that earned him sharp criticism from Israeli hardliners, with four of them reportedly likely to have voted against the decision.
However, as hardliners prepared their political attacks, Netanyahu’s people quickly called the deal a resounding success.
Liran Dan, a spokesman for Netanyahu, said on Israeli army radio that during the war, Israel had managed to inflict “a military and political defeat” on Hamas, which “did not get anything that it wanted” from the deal.
Tzahi HaNegbi, deputy foreign minister, also took a similar stance.
“Hamas, whose main objective was to force us to lift the blockade on Gaza, failed and all its demands were rejected”, he told public radio.
One of the key issues was the demand for the opening of an airport and a port.
HaNegbi said that the Israeli Prime Minister will not hand the Palestinian movement any political victory.
“There will be no port, no airport and no entry of materials that could be used to produce rockets or build tunnels.That will be our position which we will present at the negotiations in Cairo”, he said.
However, the deal has created some ill-will within Netanyahu’s ranks.
“The general feeling in Israel is that (the truce showed) terrorism pays.Israel has given the impression we want calm at any price, which weakens our powers of deterrence”, Tourism Minister Uzi Landau told the public radio.
Housing Minister Uri Ariel urged Netanyahu to summon a cabinet session for a post-mortem of the ceasefire and how to handle the probable “resumption of clashes”.