Among the many who attended the funeral of Uriel Baruch - who was murdered in the October 7 massacre and whose body was returned from Hamas last week - was National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who has accompanied the family during the two years since the murder and abduction.
“I accompanied the struggle of this special family,” Minister Ben-Gvir said in an interview with Arutz Sheva - Israel National News, adding that “one cannot but join the brother Idan’s call, the whole family’s call, for the death penalty for the terrorists. These terrorists are worthy of death and must not be allowed to go free; they must not be allowed to learn that it pays to kidnap, to rape, to murder and to harm.”
Ben-Gvir went on to note that the Baruch family’s call for the death penalty for the terrorists “joins my call to our dear Prime Minister - we have done good and important things, but it is not possible not to dismantle Hamas and finish the story without the death penalty for the terrorists.”
Addressing the return of the hostages and his opposition to the recent ceasefire deal, Minister Ben Gvir said he stands by his opposition to the agreement. “If we had done what I asked to be done all along - military pressure, an intense war, to drop hell’s gates on Gaza - we would long ago have been past all this.”
Ben Gvir referenced today’s morning violation of the ceasefire by Hamas, when its operatives attacked our soldiers. “It is a mistake and naïveté to repeat what happened on October 6. They must be decisively defeated in an intensive campaign; everything must be stopped, strike them and eliminate them. We see the pictures of the jeeps in Gaza - how can one accept such a thing? If not tomorrow, then the day after, those Hamas jeeps will be turned against Israel. Therefore they must be dismantled, struck and as many terrorists killed as possible.”
On how such an intensive campaign can and should be carried out, the minister clarified that it does not necessarily mean a ground invasion and could also be done by dropping bombs from the air. “I meet the soldiers and they tell me we can crush them. There were claims we did not operate in certain places because there are living hostages. Today, thank God, the living hostages have returned and hopefully the bodies of the holy martyrs who were murdered will return as well, but now we are far freer to act. It is possible to drop hell’s gates on Gaza in many ways, and Israel has proven that when it wants to win, it knows how to do so.”
Concerning the political threats he sent about dissolving the coalition should his position not be adopted and implemented, the National Security Minister said these were not threats but a position well-known to the Prime Minister after it was stated at the cabinet meeting. “We said it explicitly: this war cannot end without dismantling Hamas. Hamas must be dismantled. Our soldiers gave their lives, sacrificed and invested, and we must dismantle Hamas to the roots - for this generation and for generations to come.”
The issue debated today by government ministers - the name of the war - occupies Ben Gvir less, he said. “One thing occupies me: ending the war. We have not yet finished the war. If Hamas is still in Gaza, we have not finished the war. We did good things and one must say so and bless the Prime Minister, the Defense Minister and the Chief of Staff, and I had the honor to take part in many good things and to push for more and more, but this war does not end until Hamas is dismantled, period.”
Ben Gvir said that if the Prime Minister indeed takes on the challenge of dismantling Hamas and killing the terrorists, the coalition - which opens its winter session tomorrow - will complete its term and even continue beyond that.