Israeli Finance Minister and ultranationalist, Bezalel Smotrich, hinted on Monday that it could be "justified and moral" to block humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, even if it leads to the death of two million civilians from starvation, although the international community would not allow that to happen.
"We are providing aid because there is no other option," said Smotrich at a conference in Yad Binyamin organized by the Israel Hayom media outlet. "We cannot, in the current global reality, wage a war. No one will allow us to starve 2 million civilians, even if it may be justified and moral until our hostages are returned. Humanitarian aid in exchange for humanitarian aid is morally justified, but what can we do? We live today in a certain reality, we need international legitimacy for this war," Smotrich stated in remarks reported by the local newspaper The Times of Israel.
The Israeli Finance Minister stated that blocking humanitarian aid to Gaza was more likely to achieve the release of all hostages held by Hamas, unlike the current hostage-for-ceasefire agreement being negotiated, which only guarantees the release of some.
"Everyone wants to bring back the hostages, but the agreement only includes a minority of hostages and condemns the majority, and therefore, it is neither right nor moral and endangers the nation," he said while opposing the release of terrorists from Israeli prisons in exchange for hostages.
The far-right minister also pointed out that Israel must regain full control of the Gaza Strip and questioned whether Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "does not want or is not able" to rein in the voices in his cabinet that oppose such an extreme measure.
Netanyahu has rejected the possibility of reoccupying the Gaza Strip almost 20 years later, although Smotrich has repeatedly argued that without the withdrawal from the 2005 positions - when Israel controlled the Palestinian enclave - the attack by the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) on October 7 would not have occurred.