From the Liveblog of
Sunday, September 27, 2026
Smotrich: Israel must ‘go to war’ in West Bank as ‘we did in Gaza,’ annex most of Strip, south Lebanon
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Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich calls on Israel to “go to war” in the West Bank and “do there what we did in Gaza,” and repeats his call to dismantle the Palestinian Authority, which governs West Bank Palestinian population centers.
He also calls on Israel to annex southern Lebanon and the territory the IDF holds in Gaza.
The chair of the far- right Religious Zionism party makes the remarks to a podcast on the Ynet outlet when asked how Israel should combat the rising security tensions in the West Bank, where there have been multiple attacks on Israelis as well as near-daily settler violence and harassment.
Smotrich has previously called on Israel to annex more than 80% of the West Bank, which he refers to by its biblical name, Judea and Samaria. In his campaign for next month’s election, he has trumpeted the significant expansion of Israeli settlements in the territory under the current government.
“I certainly have solutions” to the situation in the West Bank, he says. “I think we need to go to war in Judea and Samaria, to do there what we did in Gaza, to dismantle the Palestinian Authority, which is a terror authority.”
He notes that Israel has already cleared out Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank, and adds, “We need to tell the IDF: Just as you dismantled Hamas in Gaza, there won’t be terror infrastructure in Judea and Samaria. No terrorists, no weapons, no tunnels.”
He also says that annexing parts of Gaza and Lebanon would make Israel’s enemies “pay a price” for the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attack and the multi-front war that followed.
Smotrich has previously called for annexation and has also called for reestablishing Israeli settlements in Gaza.
“I would very much like to annex at least up to the Yellow Line in Gaza and up to the Litani [River] in Lebanon,” he says.
The Yellow Line, set in last year’s ceasefire in Gaza, splits the enclave between Israeli and Hamas control, with Israel holding more than 60 percent of the territory. The Litani River is the unofficial border of southern Lebanon. The IDF holds a buffer zone there following missile fire on Israel from the Iran-backed Hezbollah terror group, which sparked repeated fighting in Lebanon.
Smotrich says that he advocates annexation of those areas “not just because of settlement in the Land of Israel, but just because, if a war ends on the borders it began, what will prevent the enemy from going to war again? … It needs to pay a price.”
Lebanon — which is in talks with Israel about an IDF withdrawal, disarming Hezbollah, and an eventual peace deal — objects to Israel holding its territory. US President Donald Trump’s postwar plan for Gaza also includes Israel withdrawing from the territory.
The Times of Israel Community.