As Israel eliminates entrenched Hamas terrorists in Gaza in the past 24 hours, Finance Minister and Minister in the Defense Ministry Bezalel Smotrich called today (Sunday), during remarks at a yeshiva gathering in Sderot marking the opening of the month of Elul, on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to change Israel’s policy in the Strip and move to full Israeli control. Smotrich called for conquering the Strip, establishing military rule and Jewish settlement, and later encouraging voluntary emigration of residents who wish to leave. According to him, without Israeli control it will be impossible to complete the dismantling of Hamas rule.
4+Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich is once again laying out the alternative he wants to advance for the day after the war in Gaza: not Hamas rule, not the ‘Palestinian’ Authority and not an international body—but direct Israeli control of the Strip. In remarks delivered at the Sderot yeshiva, with participation from the yeshiva’s head Rabbi David Fendel and Mayor Alon Davidi, Smotrich addressed recent developments in the Strip and the elimination of arch-terrorists in the past 24 hours, linking the continued fighting to the question of who will control Gaza afterward.
According to him, to achieve the war objective defined after the October 7 massacre, Israel must take full responsibility for the Strip: “To fulfill the first and central war objective we set after these cruel Nazis perpetrated the most horrific massacre that has befallen the Jewish people since the Holocaust, we set on the night after Simchat Torah in the cabinet the goal of destroying Hamas.
4+“Destroying Hamas militarily, civilly and governmentally. Not this Hamas, or another Hamas. The State of Israel must agree to take responsibility for Gaza. To conquer it fully, to establish military rule in it, to establish Jewish settlement in it, and then to encourage emigration of those who want to leave.”
Smotrich also addressed the 15-point plan and attempts to find an entity other than Hamas or the ‘Palestinian’ Authority that could take responsibility for the Strip. According to him, the attempt to establish an international mechanism that will take responsibility for Gaza is impractical, because other countries will not be willing to send their soldiers to disarm Hamas.
4+According to him, “In Gaza neither Hamas nor the Authority will rule. So who will? The prime minister asked President Trump: find some international construction like that, find something that doesn’t exist. There is no one in the world who will do the work for us. There is no country in the world that will send its soldiers to shed their blood and disarm Hamas by force.”
From there Smotrich moved to a direct message to Netanyahu. According to him, he has been presenting the same position to the prime minister since the start of the war: Israel must choose between its control of the Strip and the possibility that terror organizations will return to control it: “I’ve been telling the prime minister from the first day of the war: it’s either us or them. Either the State of Israel will rule Gaza with courage and tell the whole world ‘we don’t allow two million or 1.8 million Nazis to live on our border and tunnel under our communities and our children,’ or terror will rule Gaza.”
4+Smotrich also presented Jewish settlement as part of the security concept he wants to advance in the Strip. Addressing the yeshiva students he said: “This is one of the missions of our study halls: to look at reality with courage and tell the people of Israel ‘yes, this is the right thing.’ Conquest, military rule, settlement. Because over time it has been proven that where there is settlement there is an army and there is security, and where there is no settlement—over time there is no army and no security.”
The head of Sderot yeshiva, Rabbi David Fendel, blessed Smotrich and said: “It is a great honor to open the semester with politics of Jewish thought, politics that is entirely holy work. To be a holy servant to a holy people. It is a great honor to open the semester with the honor of sovereignty. And with this we open on the 3rd of Elul the study hall of the Rabbi of blessed memory, we are a class within a huge study hall, a study hall that taught us laws of the public, laws of the collective, and laws of the Land of Israel.”
4+Smotrich’s remarks come against the backdrop of terrorist murderers eliminated in the Strip in the past 24 hours and the ongoing dispute within the government regarding how Israel should operate in Gaza and the arrangement that will apply there going forward. According to details that were reported, Smotrich and Minister Orit Strock opposed the 15-point agreement, and the prime minister rejected it following their insistence. In his remarks now, Smotrich presented the position he wants to establish in place of other solutions that were examined: direct and full Israeli control.
The dispute actually touches on two different questions. The first is how to dismantle Hamas from its military and governmental capability; the second is who will take responsibility for the Strip afterward. Smotrich rejects both a return of Hamas to power and rule by the ‘Palestinian’ Authority, and also casts doubt on the possibility that an international force will agree to carry out the mission.