Smotrich demands swift probe into release of Shifa head, urges military rule over Gaza

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich demands that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launch a probe into how officials allowed Shifa Hospital director Mohammad Abu Salmiya to be freed from custody and returned to the Gaza Strip.

“I appealed to the prime minister demanding an immediate investigation into this failure and demanding answers from all those responsible, without exception, in order to ensure that nothing of this kind happens again,” Smotrich tells reporters ahead of his Religious Zionism party’s weekly faction meeting in the Knesset.

Smotrich says he will request that the investigation’s conclusions be presented to the cabinet this week, “including taking steps against those responsible for the failure.”

“Even if the IDF has a justified criticism of the Israel Prisons Service for not solving the incarceration crisis, this still does not justify this release,” he continues, saying it sends “a message of weakness to our enemies.”

The Prisons Service is under the authority of National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir. While Smotrich does not mention Ben Gvir today, he accused his fellow far-right cabinet minister this week of failing to prevent the spread of illegal weapons in the Arab community.

The Prisons Service is currently pushing back against claims made by the Shin Bet that it was forced to release detainees back to Gaza due to a lack of space in jails. It warned in December that the war with Hamas has strained the prison system’s capacity to house a growing number of inmates.

Turning to the Palestinian issue, Smotrich boasts about the cabinet’s approval of his proposal to legalize five West Bank outposts and impose “severe sanctions on the Palestinian Authority and its officials,” stating that he is working to “remove [a Palestinian state] from the agenda by establishing facts on the ground.”

Referencing the far-right National Rally’s recent electoral success in France, Smotrich says that “France and Europe are also beginning to wake up and understand the danger of extreme Islam that endangers the entire free world” — adding that he wants to “congratulate former [US] President [Donald] Trump” for coming out against a Palestinian state during last week’s American presidential debate.

Regarding ongoing fighting in Gaza, Smotrich states that “it is time to take responsibility for the distribution of humanitarian aid so that it does not reach Hamas” and insists that “only military rule in Gaza will allow the IDF to occupy and take over the territory and prevent the return of Hamas and the restoration of its power.”

Regarding fighting in the north, he asserts that only launching “a defensive war and establishing a security zone in southern Lebanon” will bring peace to the area.

“An agreement with Hezbollah is not worth the paper it is written on, and it will cost us a terrible, terrible price of thousands of dead, if we postpone the decision to go to war” with Hezbollah, he argues.