From the Liveblog of
Tuesday, March 18, 2025
Smotrich: Renewed Gaza fighting will ‘look completely different from what has been done so far’
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"
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich welcomes the resumption of military operations in the Gaza Strip, after the Air Force launched a series of overnight airstrikes against Hamas targets in the coastal enclave.
“As we promised,” the IDF returned to action with a “powerful attack on Gaza with the goal of destroying Hamas, returning all the hostages, and removing the threat posed by the Gaza Strip to Israeli citizens,” Smotrich tweets, describing the renewal of hostilities as a “gradual process that we have built and planned in recent weeks since the new chief of staff took office” which “will look completely different from what has been done so far.”
“We will all need to remobilize with strength, faith and determination, until victory,” he says, congratulating the troops, recently sworn-in IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir, Defense Minister Israel Katz and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“This is the moment for which we remained in the government despite our opposition to the deal, and we are more determined than ever to complete the task and destroy Hamas,” he adds.
While Itamar Ben Gvir’s far-right Otzma Yehudit party quit Netanyahu’s coalition in January after the government agreed to a ceasefire agreement with Hamas, Smotrich’s Religious Zionism preferred to remain in the coalition — while warning that it would bolt the coalition if the deal went beyond its first phase.
