An Israeli minister threatens the Gaza strip with weekly territory annexations. Call to Netanyahu
Bezalel Smotrich, photo: Gil Cohen-Magen / AFP / Profimedia
The Israeli Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich, asked the government on Thursday to begin to annex parts of the Gaza Strip if the Palestinian militant organization Hamas maintains its weapons, AFP reports.
The far-right minister, who vehemently opposed the possibility of concluding an agreement with Hamas to stop the war erupted in October 2023, presented his plan to “win in Gaza until the end” in a press conference in Jerusalem.
“This can be done in three to four months”
Smotrich's proposal provides for an ultimatum for Hamas's surrender and disarming, as well as for the issuance of hostages still held in Gaza.
If Hamas refuses, says Smotrich, Israel should attach a section of Palestinian territory every week, for four weeks, thus bringing most of the Gaza strip under full Israeli control.
The Minister of Finance first wants to be transmitted to the Palestinians to move to the south of the Gaza strip, and then the Israeli army to launch a siege in the north and center of the Enclove to neutralize the Hamas militants who are there. The plan ends with the annexation.
“This can be done in three to four months,” he said.
The statements were made in the context in which the Israeli army intensified its bombings on the city of Gaza, the largest in the enclave.
Most of the population of 2 million inhabitants of the Gaza strip has been relocated at least once since the war began.
Minister Bezalel Smotrich asked Prime Minister Netanyahu “to adopt this plan immediately.”
Smotrich is among the members of the ruling coalition in Israel who expressed their support for a possible restoration of Israeli settlements in the Gaza strip, where Israel had retired his troops and colonists in 2005.
The minister lives himself in a settlement in the busy Westordan, in which he authorized a major colonization project last week. Smotrich said that the initiative on the area known as E1, east of Jerusalem, is meant to “bury the idea of a Palestinian state.”
