An Israeli ultra-Orthodox party that has been a key governing partner of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said early Tuesday it was leaving the coalition government, threatening to destabilize the Israeli leader’s rule at a pivotal time in the conflict in Gaza.

United Torah Judaism’s two factions said they were bolting the government over disagreements surrounding a bill that would codify broad military draft exemptions for their constituents, many of whom study Jewish texts instead of enlisting to the military. The issue has long divided Jewish Israelis, most of whom are required to enlist, a rift that has only widened since the conflict in Gaza began and demands on military manpower grew.

“After the government repeatedly violated its commitments to ensure the status of Jewish seminary students,” the Degel HaTorah faction said in a statement, its lawmakers announced “their resignation from the coalition and the government.”

The departure of a party that has long served as a kingmaker in Israeli politics doesn’t immediately threaten Netanyahu’s rule. But, once it comes into effect within 48 hours, it will leave the Israeli leader with a slim majority in a government that could now more heavily rely on the whims of two far-right parties. Those parties oppose concessions in ceasefire negotiations with Hamas and have themselves quit or threatened to quit the government over moves to end or even pause the conflict in Gaza.

2:09 Gaza war: Trump hosts Netanyahu amid Israel-Hamas ceasefire talks

The political shake-up comes as Israel and Hamas are discussing the terms of a truce for the 21-month conflict in Gaza. Despite heavy pressure by the U.S., Israel’s top ally, and mediators Egypt and Qatar, there is no breakthrough yet in the talks. A recurring sticking point has been whether the conflict ends as part of any truce and Netanyahu’s far-right coalition allies oppose ending the conflict while Hamas remains intact.

United Torah Judaism’s departure has a window of 48 hours before becoming official, meaning Netanyahu can still find ways to satisfy the party and bring it back into the coalition. But Shuki Friedman, vice president of the Jewish People Policy Institute, said the gaps between the draft law currently on the table and the demands of the party are still wide, making a compromise unlikely during that time.

Friedman said the party’s departure doesn’t immediately put Netanyahu’s rule at risk. A vote to dissolve parliament that would bring down the government and trigger new elections can’t be brought by the opposition until the end of the year because of procedural reasons. And a summer recess for Parliament, beginning later this month and stretching until October, gives Netanyahu another attempt to bridge the gaps and bring the party back into the coalition.

Cabinet Minister Miki Zohar, from Netanyahu’s Likud party, said he was hopeful the party could be coaxed back to the coalition. “God willing, everything will be fine,” he said.

A Likud spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

On Sunday, U.S. President Donald Trump said the U.S. would send an undisclosed number of Patriots to Ukraine, and that the European Union would pay for them.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has asked for more defensive capabilities, among them Patriot systems and missiles, to fend off daily missile and drone attacks from Russia.

Here is some key information about the Patriot:

The Patriot, short for Phased Array Tracking Radar for Intercept on Target, is a mobile surface-to-air missile defense system developed by Raytheon Technologies RTX.N.

It is considered one of the most advanced air defence systems in the U.S. arsenal and has been in service since the 1980s.

A typical battery includes radar and control systems, a power unit, launchers, and support vehicles. The system can intercept aircraft, tactical ballistic missiles and cruise missiles, depending on the interceptor used.

The system has different capabilities depending on the type of interceptor used.

The earlier PAC-2 interceptor uses a blast-fragmentation warhead that detonates in the vicinity of a target, while the PAC-3 family of missiles uses more accurate technology that hits the target directly.

It is not clear what kind of Patriot systems have been donated to Ukraine, but it is likely that Kyiv has at least some of the newer PAC-3 CRI interceptors.

1:57 Russia launches record drone attack on Ukraine after Trump slams Putin

The system’s radar has a range of over 150 km (93 miles), the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) said in 2015.

Although the Patriot was not originally designed to intercept hypersonic weapons and Raytheon has not yet confirmed if it is able to do so, in May 2023 the U.S. confirmed Ukraine had used it to shoot down a Russian Kinzhal missile, which Moscow claims is hypersonic.

Since January 2015, the Patriot has intercepted more than 150 ballistic missiles in combat operations, Raytheon says on its website.

Raytheon has built and delivered over 240 Patriot fire units, according to its website.

These have been shipped to 19 countries, according to Raytheon, including the U.S., Germany, Poland, Ukraine, Japan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

In January, Axios reported the U.S. had transferred about 90 Patriot interceptors from Israel to Ukraine.

A newly produced single Patriot battery costs over US$1 billion, including US$400 million for the system and $690 million for the missiles in a battery, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Patriot interceptors are estimated at around US$4 million per missile, CSIS says.

Kyiv has consistently asked Western allies for more air defences to protect critical infrastructure and civilian areas from frequent Russian missile and drone attacks.

While effective at intercepting missiles and aircraft, Patriots are a costly way to shoot down low-budget drones.

Still, Ukrainian officials say they are essential to defending key targets from Russia’s escalating long-range attacks.

Russia says it sees the Patriots as a direct escalation. Foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in May that supplying more systems to Ukraine would delay the chances of peace.

—Reporting by Isabel Demetz and Jesus Calero; Editing by Matt Scuffham

Trump made the announcement during an Oval Office meeting with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte.

“We’re going to be doing very severe tariffs if we don’t have a deal in 50 days,” the Republican president said. He said they would be “secondary tariffs,” meaning they would target Russia’s trading partners in an effort to isolate Moscow in the global economy.

“I use trade for a lot of things,” Trump added. “But it’s great for settling wars.” Besides the tariff threat, Trump and Rutte discussed a rejuvenated pipeline for U.S. weapons.

European allies plan to buy military equipment and then transfer them to Ukraine. Trump said there would be “billions and billions” of dollars purchased.

Rutte said Germany, Finland, Canada, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom and Denmark would be among the buyers to supply Ukraine. He said “speed is of the essence here,” and he said the shipments should make Putin “reconsider” peace negotiations.

Trump has long boasted of his friendly relationship with Putin, and after taking office in January repeatedly said that Russia was more willing than Ukraine to reach a peace deal. At the same time, Trump accused Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of prolonging the war and called him a “dictator without elections.”

But Russia’s relentless onslaught against civilian areas of Ukraine wore down Trump’s patience. In April, Trump urged Putin to “STOP!” launching deadly barrages on Kyiv, and the following month said in a social media post that the Russian leader “has gone absolutely CRAZY!” as the bombardments continued.

“It just keeps going on and on and on,” Trump said on Monday. “Every night, people are dying.”

1:42 Russia launches barrage of drones, missiles at Kyiv as US resumes Ukraine weapons deliveries

Meanwhile, Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine and Russia, retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, met with Zelenskyy in Kyiv on Monday.

Zelenskyy said he had “a productive conversation” with Kellogg about strengthening Ukrainian air defences, joint arms production and purchasing U.S. weapons in conjunction with European countries, as well as the possibility of tighter international sanctions on the Kremlin.

“We hope for the leadership of the United States, because it is clear that Moscow will not stop unless its … ambitions are stopped by force,” Zelenskyy said on Telegram.

Russia has pounded Ukrainian cities, including the capital, Kyiv, with hundreds of drones and cruise and ballistic missiles that Ukraine’s air defences are struggling to counter.

June brought the highest monthly civilian casualties of the past three years, with 232 people killed and 1,343 wounded, the U.N. human rights mission in Ukraine said. Russia launched 10 times more drones and missiles in June than in the same month last year, it said.

At the same time, Russia’s bigger army is making a new effort to drive back Ukrainian defenders on parts of the 1,000-kilometre (620-mile) front line.

Trump confirmed the U.S. is sending Ukraine more badly needed Patriot air defence missiles and that the European Union will pay the U.S. for the “various pieces of very sophisticated” weaponry.

While the EU is not allowed under its treaties to buy weapons, individual EU member countries can and are, just as NATO member countries are buying and sending weapons.

Germany has offered to finance two Patriot systems, government spokesperson Stefan Kornelius said Monday in Berlin. As far as other European countries financing more systems is concerned, that would have to be seen in talks, he said.

German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius was traveling to Washington on Monday to meet with Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Germany has already given three of its own Patriot systems to Ukraine, and Pistorius was quoted as saying in an interview with the Financial Times that it now has only six.

A top ally of Trump, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, said Sunday that the conflict is nearing an inflection point as Trump shows growing interest in helping Ukraine fight back against Russia’s full-scale invasion. It’s a cause that Trump had previously dismissed as being a waste of U.S. taxpayer money.

“In the coming days, you’ll see weapons flowing at a record level to help Ukraine defend themselves,” Graham said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” He added: “One of the biggest miscalculations Putin has made is to play Trump. And you just watch, in the coming days and weeks, there’s going to be a massive effort to get Putin to the table.”

1:57 Russia launches record drone attack on Ukraine after Trump slams Putin

Kirill Dmitriev, Putin’s envoy for international investment who took part in talks with U.S. officials in Saudi Arabia in February, dismissed what he said were efforts to drive a wedge between Moscow and Washington.

“Constructive dialogue between Russia and the United States is more effective than doomed-to-fail attempts at pressure,” Dmitriev said in a post on Telegram. “This dialogue will continue, despite titanic efforts to disrupt it by all possible means.”

—Associated Press writers Lorne Cook in Brussels and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report.

Israel and Hamas appeared no closer to a breakthrough in indirect talks meant to pause the war and free some Israeli hostages after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Washington visit last week. A new sticking point has emerged over Israeli troops ‘ deployment during a ceasefire.

Israel says it will end the war only once Hamas surrenders, disarms and goes into exile, something it refuses to do. Hamas says it is willing to free all the remaining 50 hostages, about 20 said to be alive, in exchange for an end to the war and the full withdrawal of Israeli forces.

Throughout the war in Gaza, violence has surged in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Funerals were held there Sunday for two Palestinians, including Palestinian-American Sayfollah Musallet, killed by Israeli settlers, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

In central Gaza, officials at Al-Awda Hospital said it received 10 bodies after an Israeli strike on a water collection point in nearby Nuseirat. Among the dead were six children.

Ramadan Nassar, a witness who lives in the area, told The Associated Press that around 20 children and 14 adults had been lined up to get water. He said Palestinians walk some 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) to fetch water from the area.

The Israeli military said it was targeting a militant but a technical error made its munitions fall “dozens of meters from the target.”

In Nuseirat, a small boy leaned over a body bag to say goodbye to a friend.

“There is no safe place,” resident Raafat Fanouna said as some people went over the rubble with sticks and bare hands.

Separately, health officials said an Israeli strike hit a group of citizens walking in the street on Sunday afternoon in central Gaza City, killing 11 people and injuring around 30 others.

Dr. Ahmed Qandil, who specializes in general surgery, was among those killed, Gaza’s Health Ministry said. A ministry spokesperson, Zaher al-Wahidi, told the AP that Qandil had been on his way to Al-Ahli Arab Baptist Hospital.

In the central town of Zawaida, an Israeli strike on a home killed nine, including two women and three children, officials at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital said. Later, Al-Awda Hospital said a strike on a group of people in Zawaida killed two.

Israel’s military said it was unaware of the strike on the home, but said it hit more than 150 targets over the past 24 hours, including what it called weapons storage facilities, missile launchers and sniping posts. Israel blames Hamas for civilian casualties because the militant group operates out of populated areas.

Gaza’s Health Ministry says women and children make up more than half of the over 58,000 dead in the war. The ministry, under Gaza’s Hamas-run government, doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count. The U.N. and other international organizations see its figures as the most reliable statistics on war casualties.

The Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, 2023, that sparked the war killed some 1,200 people and abducted 251.

Israel’s Energy Minister Eli Cohen told right-wing Channel 14 that his ministry will not help rebuild infrastructure in Gaza. “Gaza should remain an island of ruins to the next decades,” he said.

In the West Bank, which has seen violence between Israeli troops and Palestinians and Israeli settlers’ attacks on Palestinians, funerals were held for a Palestinian-American and a Palestinian friend.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said Musallet, from Florida, had been beaten by Israeli settlers. Diana Halum, a cousin, said the attack occurred on his family’s land. The ministry initially identified him as Seifeddine Musalat, 23.

Musallet’s friend, Mohammed al-Shalabi, was shot in the chest, the ministry said.

Israel’s military has said Palestinians hurled rocks at Israelis in the area on Friday, lightly wounding two people and setting off a larger confrontation. Palestinians and rights groups have long accused the military of ignoring settler violence.

Their bodies were carried through the streets on Sunday as mourners waved Palestinian flags and chanted, “God is great.”

Musallet’s family has said it wants the U.S. State Department to investigate his death and hold the settlers accountable. The State Department said it had no comment out of respect for the family.