Aliyah and Integration Minister Ofir Sofer (Religious Zionist Party) called on Tuesday for a unity government, marking an unusual reaching across the aisle by a member of the government.
In a speech at an annual ceremony marking Prisoners of Zion and Martyrs in Jerusalem, Sofer said that "now is the time to join forces and know how to work together" and that "the challenges in the near future require this even more."
According to the ministry website, Prisoners of Zion are Jews who were held prisoner in foreign countries due to Zionist activities, and martyrs are Jews who were killed because of such activities.
According to Sofer, the ongoing war against Hamas included many challenges that were not just military or diplomatic, but also required decisions about "the state of Israel's most sensitive values and sentiments," which affected Israel's national security and resilience.
This required "higher-than-normal mutual responsibility and solidarity," Sofer said, adding that the stakes were of "historic proportions" and "far from some election poll or other."
Aliyah is the highest moral duty
Earlier in his speech, Sofer said that Israel had "the utmost moral duty to return its sons and daughters to its borders, and the duty to defeat and vanquish our enemies from near and far."
Israel has so far recognized 3,450 prisoners of Zion or martyrs, 950 of whom are still alive, according to the Aliyah ministry.
Sofer's call came after National Unity MK Matan Kahana, a member of the opposition, said in a radio interview that he would be willing to join a unity government even without setting a date for an election.
Opposition leader MK Yair Lapid responded on Tuesday to the calls for a unity government. Lapid said that already on October 7 he had proposed a broad national government to Netanyahu, who refused.
"I proposed to him again and again since then a security net in order to make a hostage deal, he did not show any interest. Israel's citizens will need to understand at some point that Ben-Gvir and Smotrich were not forced on him. This is the government that he wants, these are the partners that he wants," Lapid said.