National Unity party leader and Defense Minister Benny Gantz said Tuesday he does not rule out backing Prime Minister Yair Lapid to head the government after the November 1 elections.
"We will finish the elections, we will sit down and analyze the results and see how we proceed," Gantz told Ynet on Tuesday.
However, the defense minister reiterated his earlier statements that he would not join a government led by opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu, calling his political credibility void, and claiming he "only serves himself."
"Its not because he personally attacked me, personally offended me, and violated agreements with me - which all did happen,"Gantz said. "Rather it's because he acted against the interests of the State of Israel for the sake of his own."
Gantz founded the National Unity Party this August, along with Justice Minister Gideon Sa'ar and former IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot.
The party claims it would be in the best position to form a viable and stable coalition because it would not be rejected by the ultra-Orthodox parties currently in Netanyahu's camp.
During the interview, Gantz also touched on the recent security tensions and the newly emerged Palestinian terrorist group the Lion's Den.
"There are many events recently, we have unfortunately seen quite a few incidents in the Nablus area, there were terror attacks in which soldiers were killed, it really is a saddening reality," he said.
"We do not see the Palestinian public join in on the scale of the Second Intifada, and we will continue fighting terror in a localized manner, differentiating between terror that needs to be fought, and the local population which we must not provoke."
On Tuesday morning, at least five Palestinian militants were killed in a shootout with Israeli security forces who had entered a flashpoint city of Nablus, which has become a hotbed of terror in the West Bank.
"There are not and will not be cities of refuge for terrorists," Gantz said.
Gantz also spoke on Israel's role in the conflict in Ukraine, and clarified that Israel supports the war-ravaged country by providing diplomatic-political and humanitarian support, helping with refugees, hospitals, wounded civilians, defensive gear, and even an alert system. But, he said, will not provide Kyiv with weapons despite the Ukrainian pleas.
"We can not provide weapons for two main reasons: first, we have strategic-operational considerations in the Middle East, everyone knows this," he said.
"Second, lets be practical. Do you really think that there are endless Iron Dome batteries that are waiting in factories for someone to just take and we aren't giving them away?
"We're helping as much as we can," he concluded.