Netanyahu refuses to open Gaza border crossing day after poor polling

Coming on the heels of a new low in election polling, PM Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz announced Thursday that the Erez Crossing between Israel and Gaza would not be opened for the entry of goods.

Israel’s defense establishment had been reportedly preparing to open the crossing by Tuesday under pressure from U.S. President Trump’s Board of Peace, but according to Netanyahu and Katz, “Israel’s policy in Gaza is clear and has not changed: There will be no reconstruction before the Hamas terrorist organization is disarmed and the Gaza Strip is fully demilitarized.”

On Wednesday, a Channel 13 News poll predicted 19 seats for Netanyahu’s Likud party, a drop of four seats from the previous survey. It came a day after the launch of a new far-right party led by former general Ofer Winter, who said at the event that “there will never be a Palestinian state here. There is only one solution for Gaza – emigration.” On Thursday, Winter said he will only support giving Netanyahu the mandate to form a coalition after the election.

Meanwhile, Israel is reportedly considering expelling the British, Italian and German representatives from the coordination center tasked with monitoring the cease-fire in the Strip due to their governments’ criticism of the Netanyahu government’s policies in the West Bank and Gaza.

On Tuesday, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar announced he intends to “immediately expel” Dutch representatives from the base over “a series of anti-Israel moves by the Dutch government.”

Sources who spoke to the Financial Times said that expelling international representatives could require approval from the Board of Peace. A third source disputed this, saying that Israel has the sovereign right to decide who may enter its territory and who may remain there.

Winter’s party looks like a suitable tax shelter, a satellite party that will absorb all the rightist voters who have fled the government. Yet Winter creates a problem for the coalition bloc, because he is specifically an alternative for Smotrich’s base – religious Zionists. “Winter is a big problem for us,” one coalition member said. “The moment he is running, Smotrich simply doesn’t make it in,” writes Ravit Hecht

Eisenkot calls Israel’s controversial West Bank tender a ‘mistake’

Netanyahu’s main challenger for the premiership, Gadi Eisenkot, criticized the government for issuing a construction tender for 1,200 housing units in the strategically contested E1 area of the West Bank, telling the daily Israel Hayom that “it is a mistake that comes at an international cost.”

The tender, which was published in violation of Israeli law, was widely condemned by the international community, including Israel’s allies, such as France, Germany, Italy and Britain.

According to Eisenkot, Netanyahu had opposed building in E1 for years but approved it under pressure from his coalition partners. Eisenkot also accused far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich of “sabotaging Israel’s national interest,” saying their actions, along with settler violence against Palestinians, were damaging Israel’s international legitimacy and endangering the entire settlement enterprise.

While Eisenkot said in the interview that “anyone who thinks about a two-state solution after October 7 is simply delusional,” Smotrich retorted in a statement that the former general’s opposition to the E1 settlement plan means he “supports establishing a Palestinian state.”

Smotrich also went on to claim in a press conference that due to the “post-Zionist policy” of Israel’s Planning Administration, “the Arabs are occupying the Negev and the Galilee” in the south and north of the country, respectively. The minister said he will “Judaize” the aforementioned regions, as he did the West Bank, adding this will involve replacing “these post-Zionist and anti-Zionist people to enable the moves we want.”

In Europe, newly elected Slovenian PM Janez Janša confirmed his government blocked a planned EU-wide statement condemning Israel’s planned settlement construction in E1, saying in a post on X that his country had “removed” itself from a “vicious circle” of losing credibility through what he described as disproportionate EU condemnations of Israel.