National Union chairman MK Bezalel Smotrich (Union of Right-Wing Parties) excoriated the decision to accept a ceasefire agreement with Hamas Monday morning, saying Israel failed to restore its deterrence following two days of rocket attacks and Israeli retaliatory strikes.
Smotrich said that Israel needed to exact a heavy price from Hamas for the roughly 700 rockets fired into Israeli territory.
“The battle with Gaza needed to end with seven hundred terrorists killed – one for every rocket fired at Israel, with heavy physical damage to Hamas, the kind that will take years for them to recover from so that it will be difficult for them to think of attacking again.”
“We cannot force one-and-a-half million citizens in the south to head to the bomb shelters every few weeks.”
Smotrich is not the only coalition MK to criticize the ceasefire agreement with Hamas.
Earlier on Monday, Likud MK Gideon Saar said Israel made “no gains” with the ceasefire deal.
“The ceasefire, in the circumstances it was reached under, has no gains for Israel,” said Saar.
“The time between each round of violent attacks against Israel and its citizens is shrinking, and terror organizations in Gaza are strengthening. The fighting hasn’t been ended, just pushed off.”
A ceasefire agreement went into effect at 4:30 Monday morning, ending the latest wave of rocket attacks from Gaza, which began Saturday.
Some 700 rockets were fired into Israeli territory, killing at least four and injuring dozens.
Twenty-three Gazans were reported killed in Israeli retaliatory strikes, including nine people identified as terrorists from either Hamas or the Islamic Jihad organizations.