Education Minister and Jewish Home Chairman MK Naftali Bennett addressed Hezbollah threats and moves to regulate Havat Gilad at a faction meeting Monday.
"As the Prime Minister announced yesterday, next week the government will present its proposal for normalizing Havat Gilad's status, which is not only a contribution to building Jewish settlement in Israel, but also our personal and national obligation to the family of the Shevach family, who have lost that which is most dear to them," said Bennett.
Havat Gilad was founded 15 years ago, on land legally purchased and privately owned by Moshe Zar, but was never authorized by the government, which labelled it an illegal outpost.
Havat Gilad resident Rabbi Raziel Shevach, 32, was murdered on January 9 in a terror attack near his hometown. He is survived by his wife and six children, the youngest of whom is ten months old.
According to Bennett, "Rabbi Raziel Shevach was a man of kindness and giving, who chose to live in the community and raise his children in it out of a deep sense of mission and love of the Land. He and his family paid the greatest price, and arranging the settlement is nothing other than the right thing to do for them and for the whole settlement enterprise.
"Earlier this morning, I visited the Binyamin and Shomron Regional Councils and I think the time has come to legalize the settlement. I hereby reinforce the Prime Minister's promise to bring Havat Gilad's regulation to the cabinet this Sunday," Minister Bennett stated. "We will support him fully in the realization of this promise."
Bennett also addressed Hezbollah threats to Israel and the strengthening of the Iranian-sponsored terror organization. "After the Second Lebanon War, Nasrallah said that if he knew that Israel would respond as it did, he would not have kidnapped the soldiers, so this time Nasrallah won't have an excuse. Nasrallah won't be able to say he didn't know because we're clearly stating in advance: If Hezbollah and Iran continue to build missile factories on Lebanese soil they will bring disaster on the Lebanese state and its residents."
Bennett added that "the production of precision missiles is a dangerous escalation and we will not accept it."
The Minister also addressed Lebanon and made it clear that those who would suffer from a campaign in the north are Lebanese citizens. "We're not interested in another war in the north, but they should make no mistake; for the State of Israel, the equation is clear: Hezbollah equals Lebanon and vice versa, so the residents of Lebanon, and especially the Shiite residents in the south of the country who store in their homes quite a few launchers and rockets, they won't be able to complain to Israel and say we didn't know. Here. We said it."
