Chair of the Yisrael Beytenu party Gadi Eisenkot responded to Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich's statement that "forming a government with Mansour Abbas" is more severe "than the October 7 massacre." Eisenkot wrote: "Bezalel, you shame the public you were sent to represent." Chair of the Democrats party Yair Golan also responded, saying that "as far as he's concerned, it's preferable to massacre the people of Israel rather than have a government without him, and that's the whole story: the life of the government is more important to him than the lives of citizens."