Smotrich: Aid To Gazans Vital For Beating Hamas

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich responded today (Wednesday) to a report in Kann News that he approved billions of shekels for humanitarian aid to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip (though it is unclear how the money will be channeled and to whom):

"The Gazans don't interest me. What interests me is victory and the complete destruction of Hamas. The whole world is on our heads: Europe is pressuring us to stop, Hamas wants us to stop, and so does the Israeli left, but I'm doing everything so that we continue until complete victory. Absolute victory is not only possible - it's vital. And we will do it.

"I've been shouting this from the beginning of the war: you don't defeat Hamas only with tanks. You need to disconnect it from aid, from the population, from the trucks. Strangle it economically. If my proposals had been accepted, the war would have ended long ago, and we would have saved tens of billions of shekels.

"The war already costs 300 billion shekels. I'm now legislating a security fund to respond to the campaign in Iran, but I also want to include in it a dedicated budget for aid so we can establish shelters and also so that if we need to, we'll finance the aid to the population ourselves and not continue channeling the trucks to Hamas. Right now the funding is international, but if we need to, we'll do it ourselves.

"I hope that tomorrow we'll finally make a clear decision to attack all of Gaza, conquer all of it, and defeat Hamas militarily. But without civilian and economic strangulation, there's no chance in the world to win. This is the way to bring back the hostages. This is the way to victory."

Smotrich has consistently opposed the provision of aid without assurances that it will not be stolen and used or resold by Hamas to buttress its fighting forces, even getting into clashes with former IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi over this issue.