JERUSALEM: Israel should reoccupy Gaza rather than negotiate with Hamas, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Tuesday at an event marking the 20th anniversary of Israel’s withdrawal of settlers from the Palestinian territory.
“Gaza is an integral part of Israel. How to move on to a tangible plan (for resettlement)? We need to need think about it, and above all we must succeed,” said Smotrich, who lives in a settlement in the occupied West Bank.
Smotrich, who had threatened to leave the government if it allowed aid into Gaza, was on the back foot a day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu authorized new humanitarian deliveries.
“If I’m still in the government despite everything, it’s probably because I have good reasons to believe positive things are about to happen,” the head of the Religious Zionism Party said.
Smotrich evoked the 2005 withdrawal in which Israel evacuated 8,000 settlers and its soldiers from the Gaza Strip.
“Who could have thought 20 years ago that Gaza would be like it is now?” he asked the audience, before suggesting that conditions in the territory now favored a return of Israeli settlers.
During a meeting at the Israeli parliament last week, elected officials and ministers were presented with a plan for the construction of new settlements.
“This is doable and realistic. I’m very optimistic. Conquering Gaza and settling it as an integral part of the State of Israel,” Smotrich said at the time.
Fellow far-right minister Yitzhak Wasserlauf echoed his comment. “This is the price that the terrorists must pay, and God willing, as soon as possible,” he said.
Several Israeli far-right groups will march Wednesday under the slogan “20 years later, we’re coming back to the Gaza Strip.”
Gaza’s Hamas government reacted angrily to Smotrich’s remarks, calling them “an explicit threat to continue the crimes of genocide and forced displacement against our people.”