Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich went on Channel 12 TV yesterday and declared that Israel will fully occupy the Gaza Strip, all but telling Israelis that they should forget about the remaining hostages held by Hamas. “We are finally going to occupy the Gaza Strip. We will stop being afraid of the word ‘occupation,’” Smotrich told Channel 12 journalist Amit Segal during a conference organized by the right-wing Besheva newspaper, reported the Times of Israel.
“We are finally taking control of all humanitarian aid, so that it does not become supplies for Hamas. We are separating Hamas from the population, cleansing the Strip, bringing back the hostages—and defeating Hamas,” he said, adding that once the new offensive in Gaza begins there will be “no retreat from the territories we have conquered, not even in exchange for hostages.”
Smotrich’s comments come as hostility against the government’s war policy is skyrocketing. At the Knesset on May 5, Einav Zangauker, mother of hostage Matan Zangauker, lashed out at coalition lawmakers, shouting: “I want to know what the hell you’re thinking, doing this,” and called on reservists not to show up to duty (the matter of mobilization of reservists for expanded operations in Gaza appears to have become a major a flash-point between supporters and opponents of the government—ed.). “The cabinet decided to send heroic soldiers to an operation that will result in the murder of hostages in captivity, and the loss of soldiers,” she added. “You think the nation will take this in silence?”
The Times of Israel particularly puts the spotlight on Democrats party chairman Yair Golan, who wrote on X on May 4, Sunday night: “The cabinet decided tonight to expand the military operation in the Strip—not in order to protect the security of Israel, but in order to save Netanyahu and his government of extremists.”
“This is not another temporary operation, but rather a process that authorizes permanent presence in the territory, as part of the realization of the fantasy of [far-right National Security Minister] Ben-Gvir and [Finance Minister] Smotrich,” he added.
“Occupying the Strip, in practice, for the sake of ‘the survival of the government’ will cost us in blood—in the lives of hostages, in the lives of soldiers, in exhaustion, and essentially: in losing our way,” Golan continued. “While the government of Israel advances a scandalous draft evasion law, it enlists, without shame, tens of thousands of reserve fighters who have already served hundreds of days since the start of the war—and for what? For a process with no security purpose that doesn’t hasten the freeing of the hostages—to the contrary.
“The IDF chief of staff must abide by an iron principle: The IDF is the Israel Defense Forces—it must defend the citizens of Israel, not serve political goals.”
