Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich (Religious Zionism Party) said on Monday that should the war in Gaza resume, Israel’s approach would be “very aggressive.” During a faction meeting of his Religious Zionism Party at the Knesset, Smotrich told JNS that this would involve not only targeting Hamas militarily, but also wresting administrative control from it.
Asked by JNS about the claim by former Israel Defense Forces chief of staff Gadi Eizenkot on Monday that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad have a combined fighting force of 30,000 men, Smotrich downplayed the significance of the number.
The last thing that Hamas lacks in Gaza is fighters. What are fighters? They are men between the ages of 16 and 50—there are about half a million of them; I know how many are in the Gaza Strip—that is not what they lack,” said Smotrich. Rather, it is Hamas’s military and governmental capabilities that need to be destroyed, he continued. (Read More)
