Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich emphasized the need to eliminate the hundreds of terrorists on the Israeli side of Gaza's Yellow Line in Rafah, stating that Israeli forces are close to eliminating them in the tunnels, during a Wednesday morning interview on public broadcaster KAN News's The Kalman Liberman Show.
"We need to eliminate the 200 terrorists stuck in Rafah. We're close to killing them in the tunnels," he said. He went on to explain that Hamas has already agreed to return the body of IDF soldier Hadar Goldin and that releasing terrorists in exchange would be unacceptable. Smotrich also rejected a reported proposal to allow “safe passage” for the roughly 200 Hamas operatives to Hamas-controlled territory from the Israeli side of the Yellow Line in exchange for the return of the bodies of hostages.
“Under no circumstances will we pay with another 200 terrorists,” Smotrich said. “Returning them would be a betrayal of the fallen soldiers. I've been saying this to the prime minister, the chief of staff, and the defense minister, don’t dare to do this.” Additionally, Smotrich addressed ongoing discussions about deploying a multinational force in Gaza. He said that Israel is working on a “detailed agreement” to ensure full coordination and veto rights. “We are now building a very detailed agreement to ensure there will be no Indonesians, etc., wandering around our feet,” he said. (Read More)
