Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said in a radio interview Monday that he and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu disagree on establishing Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip.
"My plan is for large parts of Gaza to remain under our control and sovereignty, and we can also settle them," Smotrich told Kan Reshet Bet. "That is not the prime minister's plan, I admit. But I don't think this is the right time to have that debate. I'm conducting it behind closed doors – I'm not blowing everything up over it."
Smotrich said Netanyahu's plan to take over Gaza City "is intended to maximize pressure on Hamas to bring them back to the negotiating table" for "a partial deal that would once again halt the war."
He also defended his support for transferring billions of shekels from the defense budget to humanitarian aid for Gaza, saying, "You can't win this war while bringing aid to Hamas, and you can't win it while starving the population, because no one in the world will let you do that. If we need to invest money to help that American company (the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation) create an operation in which it distributes the aid instead of Hamas, it's worth every penny. I'm not investing in humanitarian aid – I'm investing in giving the IDF global and legal legitimacy."
