Israeli left-wing opposition leader Yair Golan has called for an immediate end to the Gaza onslaught and said that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government no longer represented most Israelis, AFP reports.

“Today the government of Israel doesn’t represent the vast majority of Israelis,” said Golan, chairman of the Democrats party and a former deputy army chief, days before a planned parliament vote which the opposition hopes would trigger a general election.

Terming the current government a threat to democracy, the opposition leader said he represents those “who want to save Israeli democracy… from a corrupted future” and from the “messianic-like and nationalistic and extremist vision of a very small faction in the Israeli society”.

“The vast majority wants to keep Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people and at the same time a free, egalitarian and democratic state,” Golan said.

“I believe that we can reach a hostages deal in a matter of days,” Golan said. “I believe that by ending the war and freeing the hostages, we will be able to build an alternative to Hamas inside the Gaza Strip.”