Smotrich says all hostages returned thanks to him; ex-captive reacts: ‘Gaslighting propaganda’

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich draws outrage by claiming credit for the return of all the Gaza hostages, after critics slammed him throughout the two-year ordeal for repeatedly pushing back and voting against proposed hostage deals, including ones that ended up being approved.

“I think I have a dramatic, even decisive, impact on the war,” Smotrich tells Nadav Perry’s “All In” podcast.

“I think that if not for me, the war in Gaza would have been halted even before [the operation in] Rafah,” he says. “By the way, unlike how some are trying to portray me as some heartless person who doesn’t care about the hostages, I think it is thanks to me that all the hostages are here.”

He argues that after a January 2025 deal that returned all but 20 of the living captives, another partial deal was proposed that would return eight of the hostages.

“If in this moment I hadn’t set a red line and told [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu that this won’t happen… we would have been holding negotiations with Hamas to this day over another one, and another one and another one,” he says.

Returned hostage Or Levy reacts by calling Smotrich’s claim “gaslighting propaganda.”

“If you mean to say it is thanks to you that hostages were murdered [in captivity] while you torpedoed deals — then yes,” he writes. “If it were up to you, we wouldn’t have returned to this day… Bezalel Smotrich, you are a shameful minister, a shameful citizen and a shameful human.”