‘Don’t test us’: Smotrich threatens to quit government if PA involved in running Gaza after war

Finance Minister and Religious Zionism leader Bezalel Smotrich says he rejects reported proposals to allow Palestinian Authority officials to be involved in ruling Gaza after the war, and any decision to let Palestinians return to the northern Strip at this stage of the war.

The far-right leader even intimates he would quit the government if such arrangements are made, maintaining that previous policies toward Gaza, which he asserts his party was forced to agree to, resulted in the October 7 atrocities. He alludes to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s previous policy of containment vis-à-vis Hamas rule in the coastal enclave.

“The efforts to determine these arrangements in a one-sided manner and by circumventing deliberations in the security cabinet with all the coalition partners won’t work,” says Smotrich.

“Returning Gazan citizens to their homes in the northern [Gaza] strip at this stage is folly and this is not a decision which the defense minister can make by himself,” continues the combative minister, criticizing Gallant for the second time today.

He also rejects putative plans to allow “Palestinian officials” to help govern Gaza after the war as “unacceptable” and “incommensurate with the declarations of the prime minister in recent days, and for sure the position of the majority of the Israeli public and cabinet ministers.”

Smotrich is referring to a report in the Israel Hayom daily that said Netanyahu is considering relying on Palestinian Authority officials living in Gaza to serve as an administrative body in the territory after the first phase of the war is over.

Smotrich says he has demanded “in depth discussions” on arrangements for Gaza’s governance in writing and in person “for a long period of time,” and for decisions on the issue to be made jointly.

“I hope that the prime minister and the defense minister do not test us and do not present us with a fait accompli which we cannot be a part of,” says Smotrich, the second time today he has threatened to quit the government if policies he opposes are adopted.

“After too many years in which we have been forced to be signatories against our will to policies we totally opposed and which, among others, led to the awful massacre that Hamas carried out against Israeli citizens on Simhat Torah, we will not repeat the mistakes of the past and will not be part of a weakening of the achievement of the war which were and still are being achieved at at the cost of the precious blood of the best of our sons.”

Netanyahu posts on X shortly after Smotrich’s comments “I will not allow Hamastan to be switched for Fatahstan.”