Israeli Minister Calls To Annex Gaza If Hamas Doesn’t Surrender
Jerusalem: On Thursday, Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called on the government to start annexing the parts of the Gaza Strip if the Palestinian militant group Hamas refused to leave its weapons.
Opposing an agreement with Hamas to end the two -year war, the far -right minister presented the plan to “win in Gaza” at a press conference in Jerusalem.
In accordance with Smotrich’s proposal, Hamas would be given an ultimatum to deliver, disarm and release hostages held in Gaza since the October 2023 attack of the group.
If Hamas rejected, Smotrich said that Israel should annex a part of the region every week for four weeks, and that most of the Gaza Strip should bring to the control of Israel.
According to Smotrich, the Palestinians will first be told to move to the south in Gaza, and then Israel applied a siege to the north and center to defeat the Hamas militants staying there and end the annexation.
“This can be achieved within three to four months,” he said.
Although his statements are concerned about the fate of the Israeli forces, Palestinian civilians, the largest in the region is suppressing a major attack aimed at seizing the control of the City of Gaza.
The majority of more than two million people of Gaza were displaced at least once during the war.
Smotrich called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “to adopt this plan immediately”.
The Palestinian militant group condemned the proposal by explaining that “forcibly displacement against our people and ethnic cleaning policy has been clearly approved”.
Smotrich is one of the few extreme right members of Israel’s ruling coalition, which supports the re -establishment of settlements in the Gaza Strip, where Israel withdrew in 2005.
Smotrich, a loyal supporter of the settlement movement in a settlement in the occupied West Bank, allowed a major project that critics threatened the regional integrity of any future Palestinian state last week.
Smotrich said that the settlement project in the region known as E1 in the east of Jerusalem was “to bury the idea of the Palestinian state”.
