Bereaved families assail Finance Minister Smotrich after he skips panel on their financial needs

By Ariela Karmel

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14 September 2025, 4:01 pm

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Ariela Karmel is a political correspondent at The Times of Israel. She previously reported for Calcalist and Haaretz. She holds an MA in Middle Eastern and African History from Tel Aviv University and a BA in Political Science from the University of British Columbia.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich faces intense criticism from bereaved families at a Knesset Finance Committee session as he insists that his ministry isn’t responsible for seeing to their financial needs. “We aren’t the address,” he tells the panel, maintaining that the Defense Ministry is responsible.

The confrontation takes place during a discussion that is supposed to be focused on the budget deficit and expenditure, immediately following an earlier panel focused on the financial needs of families who lost loved ones during the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, assault, primarily parents who lost children. The panel was not attended by Smotrich nor any other representatives from the Finance Ministry.

Upon entering the chamber for the latter session, the finance minister is immediately assailed by bereaved family members demanding to know where he had been.

Likud MK Hanoch Milwidsky, chair of the committee, addresses Smotrich directly: “Part of the anger expressed is not just that these families need to come here and ask for [financial support], but that nobody from your office attended the previous session.”

Smotrich responds that the Finance Ministry is not responsible for the financial needs of the family members of those killed during war or terror attacks, and that they are instead under the jurisdiction of the Defense Ministry.

“I’ve been crying for the last two years. You don’t cry for her,” says one father, whose daughter was a surveillance soldier at the Nahal Oz military base and was murdered on October 7.

Another accuses him of “send[ing] your aide, who just finished the army, to meet me in the cafeteria, so you don’t have to deal with me. Where are you? You’re nowhere to be found.”

Also in attendance are veterans of the Gaza war, who say that not enough is being done to support them, including those suffering from PTSD.

“Do f**ing something,” one demands.

“You sent us there to fight,” another says, yelling at the finance minister. “My soul is destroyed. Why do I need to come here again and again?”

One veteran breaks down in tears, and the pair get up and leave the room as Smotrich and the rest of the panel sit in silence.