From the Liveblog of
Tuesday, April 29, 2025
Smotrich: Fighting won’t end until hundreds of thousands of Gazans leave, Syria partitioned
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. 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"
Israel will only stop fighting following the partition of Syria and the displacement of “hundreds of thousands” of Palestinians from Gaza, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich declares during a pre-Memorial Day speech in the West Bank.
“With God’s help and the valor of your comrades-in-arms who continue to fight even now, we will end this campaign when Syria is dismantled, Hezbollah is severely beaten, Iran is stripped of its nuclear threat, Gaza is cleansed of Hamas and hundreds of thousands of Gazans are on their way out of it to other countries, our hostages are returned, some to their homes and some to the graves of Israel, and the State of Israel is stronger and more prosperous,” the far-right minister tells a gathering at the Eli Yeshiva.
These are not the goals of a specific government but rather constitute the “consensus of a people who desire life” and “the final picture of a campaign that was forced upon us,” Smotrich argues.
“We will continue to debate among ourselves — about policy plans, about recruitment issues, about identity issues and also about economic issues. There can be no dispute about the destruction of the enemy,” he continues, adding that “fateful days are approaching.”
Addressing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Smotrich says that he does “not have the mandate to miss the window of opportunity.”
Smotrich’s comment about dividing Syria came days after US Rep. Marlin Stutzman told The Times of Israel that Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa had expressed “openness” to normalizing relations with Jerusalem and cautioned against efforts to divide the country.
“The first [concern] — which I felt was most important to him — was that Israel may have a plan to divide up the nation of Syria into… multiple parts. That was something that he was very opposed to,” Stutzman recalled.
The plan appeared to be a reference to the lobbying Israel has reportedly been doing in Washington for the US to buck Sharaa’s fledgling government in favor of establishing a decentralized series of autonomous ethnic regions, with the southern one bordering Israel being demilitarized.
Jacob Magid contributed to this report.
The Times of Israel Community.