Housing Minister Yoav Galant spoke at an assembly marking the initiation of a strategic plan to build 40,000 housing units in the Negev and Galilee and said that "I am concerned about the Zionist attachment to the state of Israel. It is wrong that a situation exists in which there are criminals harming farmers and communities and preventing the establishment of communities wherever the government wishes to place them."
Galant expressed his shock at the illegal expansion of Bedouin in the Negev and added that "we can't lose our hold on the south.'