“There are 2 million Nazis in Judea and Samaria, who hate us, exactly as do the Nazis of Hamas-ISIS in Gaza,” Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Monday, in reference to polling showing that most Palestinians residing in the territory support Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre.
He was responding to a question from The Times of Israel about $105 million being allocated in the budget for increasing security in Judea and Samaria.
Two surveys this month found that some two-thirds of Palestinians in Judea and Samaria support the Oct. 7 attack, in which thousands of Hamas terrorists broke through the Gaza border, murdering 1,200 people, wounding thousands more and taking some 240 captive.
Earlier this month, Smotrich called for the establishment of security zones to protect Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria from the threat of Palestinian terrorism.
In a letter sent to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, Smotrich, the head of the Religious Zionism Party and who is also a minister in the Defense Ministry, demanded that they convene an urgent session of the Political-Security Cabinet to discuss the “continuing insecurity” of the residents of Judea and Samaria.
In the letter, Smotrich called to “create wide security areas around settlements and roads, and prevent Arabs from approaching them.”
While initially opposed to the ceasefire deal with Hamas struck last Friday, Smotrich said that his party voted for it after being convinced that Israel would continue its mission to destroy Hamas in Gaza.
During the debate, it became clear to Smotrich that “repatriating hostages would advance the goals of the war and that the government, the Cabinet and the entire defense establishment were unreservedly committed to continuing the war until the destruction of Hamas.”
Smotrich thanked the Israel Defense Forces for putting pressure on the terrorist group, which created the conditions for the hostage deal and vowed that the country’s political echelon would continue to support its efforts.
“We have no intention of stopping, on the contrary—the political echelon stands behind you, believes in you and is convinced that you will complete the job, destroy the Hamas Nazis in Gaza and restore security and national dignity to the citizens of Israel,” he said.