Five ministers and four state secretaries followed Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp out after his efforts to issue new sanctions against the Israeli leadership were blocked by other government members, Dutch media reported Friday.
After failing to garner support for his plans on Friday, he announced, "I'm going home now and I'm going to write my resignation letter," according to De Telegraf.
“I felt resistance in the cabinet against more measures as a result of what is happening in Gaza City and the occupied West Bank at the moment,” he later said in a statement following his resignation.
Sources told De Telegraf that Veldkamp quit despite a compromise that would have seen an import ban on Israeli settlement goods.
House of Representatives MP Eric van der Burg was reportedly “flabbergasted” by Veldkamp’s decision, according to Dutch media site NRC.
Social Affairs Minister Eddy van Hijum, Interior Minister Judith Uitermark, Education, Culture, and Science Minister Eppo Bruins, Health, Welfare, and Sport Minister Daniëlle Jansen, and several junior ministers, all from the New Social Contract (NSC) party, resigned shortly after, according to Dutch News.
Critics of the NSC
Critics of the NSC have claimed that the mass walkout is a sign of incompetence.
"NSC could cause a single-vehicle accident in an empty parking lot," a coalition source told De Telegraf.
"NSC called itself the party of good governance, but now it's leaving the Netherlands rudderless," Hijum reportedly said. "We fully realize that the consequences are enormous."
Prime Minister Dick Schoof will give a statement to the House of Representatives on Friday evening to address the situation, Dutch media reported.
The mass resignations also come weeks after Schoof and President Isaac Herzog shared a heated exchange over X/Twitter.
The Netherlands' leader had joined those calling for the suspension of a small part of the EU-Israel Association Agreement as a result of the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip.
The Netherlands also barred entry to two senior Israeli officials - National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich - for having "incited settler violence against the Palestinian population, persistently advocated the expansion of illegal settlements, and called for ethnic cleansing in the Gaza Strip,” Veldkamp explained.