Smotrich claims his party’s influence prevented release of Palestinian prisoners on Saturday

By Sam Sokol 24 February 2025, 4:57 pm

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Sam Sokol is a former political correspondent at The Times of Israel. 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"

Finance Minister and Religious Zionism head Bezalel Smotrich leads a faction meeting at the Knesset, the Israeli parliament in Jerusalem, February 24, 2025. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

The massive public funeral of former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut on Sunday shows just how weak the terrorist group is following its recent war with Israel, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich says.

Addressing the press ahead of his Religious Zionism party’s weekly faction meeting in the Knesset, Smotrich derides a “beaten and bruised enemy that did not even dare to bury the arch-terrorist leader we eliminated for five months.”

Sunday’s funeral was attended by tens of thousands of people but only junior Hezbollah officials were present while the group’s senior leaders were “hiding like mice” out of “fear that we will eliminate them,” Smotrich says.

“And the truth is that they are right, God willing, we will eliminate them at the first opportunity. What we saw yesterday is a movement that invites the world to its own funeral procession in an amazing show of self-awareness.”

Smotrich likewise dismisses Hamas’s hostage release ceremonies, which have been attended by uniformed, masked and armed terrorists who have paraded the hostages around on stage, and says that “the only reason you cannot see the frightened faces of Hamas terrorists is simply because they cover them out of fear.”

Hamas knows “very well that their time on earth is limited, until the State of Israel returns to fight with full force, speed, and lethality that will overwhelm and destroy them,” he says, adding that “you will be surprised by the power, sharpness, and lethality of the operation to occupy Gaza when we decide that the time has come to renew it.”

Turning to the hostage deal, Smotrich takes credit for the government’s decision to halt the release of 600 Palestinian security prisoners on Saturday evening, pending assurances from Hamas that it will halt the “humiliating ceremonies” accompanying the freeing of Israeli hostages.

“Every day I am convinced that we acted correctly” in not leaving the government, he says. “Our influence on decision-making is very great, including the decision not to release the 600 terrorists on Saturday night.”

Smotrich also takes credit for the ongoing anti-terror operation in the West Bank, stating that “after two years of the settlement revolution that we are leading in the Settlement Administration, we are leading, together with the defense minister, a change in the security concept as well.”