From the Liveblog of
Tuesday, July 8, 2025
Smotrich urges continued fight in Gaza, no pullback from conquered territory
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"
Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich insists that despite the pain of losing five Israeli soldiers overnight in Gaza, Israel must continue fighting in Gaza or risk “far greater bloodshed” in the future.
“The pain is immense, and so is the faith in the righteousness of our path, the determination to continue on it, and the understanding that we have no choice but to keep fighting until the enemy is destroyed and security is restored to Israel’s citizens for many years to come,” Smotrich writes in a lengthy post on social network X.
“Those who, out of pain and shortsightedness, call for surrender to the enemy and a halt to the fighting before its destruction will, God forbid, bring about far greater bloodshed in the inevitable future rounds of conflict that will surely come soon,” he warns.
Smotrich calls on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir to immediately halt aid to the Gaza Strip, which he says is making its way to Hamas, and “encircle the combat zones” in order to “exhaust the enemy within them before they encounter our heroic fighters.”
“In addition, I demand…that any territory that conquered and cleansed of terror with the blood of our fighters not be abandoned. It is immoral and illogical, even within the framework of a hostage deal, to allow the enemy to reestablish itself in this territory and once again endanger our fighters by having to conquer it again and again. This is not how you win a war,” he states.
The Times of Israel Community.