Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich responded tonight (Wednesday) to reports that he allocated a special budget of about three billion shekels for humanitarian aid in Gaza.
"The Gazans don’t interest me. What interests me is victory and the complete destruction of Hamas. The whole world is against us: Europe is pressing for us to stop, Hamas wants us to stop, and the left in Israel, too, but I am doing everything to ensure we continue until full resolution. Absolute victory is not only possible — it is essential. And we will do it," Smotrich declared.
He added, "I have been shouting this since the beginning of the war: Hamas is not defeated just by tanks. We need to cut them off from aid, from the population, from the trucks. We need to economically strangle them. If my proposals had been accepted, the war would have been over a long time ago, and we would have saved tens of billions of shekels."
According to him, "The war has already cost 300 billion shekels. I am currently legislating a security package in response to the campaign against Iran, but I also want to include a dedicated budget for aid, so we can establish humanitarian efforts and, if necessary, fund the aid ourselves, rather than continue to funnel trucks to Hamas. Right now, the funding is international, but if we need to, we will do it ourselves."
"I hope that tomorrow, we will finally receive a clear decision to storm all of Gaza, conquer it entirely, and decisively defeat Hamas militarily. But without civil and economic strangulation, there is no chance in the world of winning. This is the way to bring the hostages home. This is the way to victory," the Finance Minister concluded.