From the Liveblog of
Tuesday, July 29, 2025
Smotrich says return of Jewish settlements to Gaza now realistic, ‘needs to be much bigger’ than before
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleSam 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"
Calling the Gaza Strip “an inseparable part of the Land of Israel,” Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich says that while returning to the settlements Israel left in 2005 had been “wishful thinking” for a long time, it is now a “realistic” option.
Addressing a conference at the Gush Katif Heritage Center marking two decades since the Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, the far-right minister says he does “not want to go back to Gush Katif — it’s too small, it needs to be much bigger, much more expansive.”
Gush Katif was the major bloc of Israeli settlements in Gaza before the Disengagement, housing some 8,500 people in 17 communities.
Smotrich also acknowledges at the conference that he has been ridiculed in the past two days for staying in the government even as it reverses course and sends increased quantities of aid into Gaza. “If I’m still in the government,” he says, “then apparently I have reason to believe that good things are going to happen, that justify the shaming and the mockery [to which I’m being subjected].”
“Ultimately, time will tell whether I’m right or not.”
“No one in the world will let us wage war and destroy Hamas and the threat posed by Gaza if we starve two million civilians,” the Haaretz daily also quotes Smotrich as saying, in an apparent rebuttal to objections on the right to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to ramp up humanitarian aid to the Palestinians.
The finance minister sent a message to his party’s lawmakers this week portraying the increase in aid as a tactical step ahead of a broader military campaign against Hamas.
The Times of Israel Community.