From the Liveblog of
Monday, May 5, 2025
Ben Gvir pans decision to resume Gaza aid, says Israel should assist only with voluntary migration
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir slams the government’s decision to resume providing humanitarian aid in Gaza, asserting that “the only aid that ought to enter Gaza should be for voluntary migration, to allow them to emigrate voluntarily.”
“As long as we have hostages languishing in the tunnels, I don’t understand this discussion at all,” he tells members of his far-right Otzma Yehudit party during its weekly faction meeting in the Knesset.
Until the hostages come home, “the enemy should not receive either food, electricity, or any other aid, neither through the IDF nor by way of civil society,” he says.
Israel approved a plan to significantly broaden the military offensive against the Hamas terror group in the Gaza Strip late Sunday, including a proposal to renew aid deliveries into Gaza while overhauling the mechanism in order to minimize diversion of the goods by Hamas to benefit its operatives.
Ben Gvir was the only one who voted against this proposal.
Israel has blocked aid from entering Gaza for two months and says it won’t allow food, fuel, water, or medicine into the besieged territory until it puts in place a system giving it control over the distribution.
Agencies contributed to this report.
The Times of Israel Community.