Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Thursday sketched out his vision for Israel’s endgame in Gaza, aligning himself with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s pledge to bring the war to a close by year’s end while making clear he expects nothing short of permanent Israeli control of the territory.

Speaking at a press conference, Smotrich said the government must project clarity and strength, warning that Hamas would be faced with a stark choice: surrender on Israel’s terms or face continued fighting.

“I am here to create order, to show the people of Israel that we need to win… and we can win. We can do it quickly,” he said.

Smotrich spelled out what surrender would look like: the release of all hostages, a full handover of weapons, the exile of Hamas’s leadership and the complete demilitarization of the Strip. Anything less, he argued, would fall short of the decisive victory he believes the country owes its citizens and the Jewish people more broadly.

Smotrich went further than Netanyahu in calling for a postwar framework that cements Israel’s role indefinitely. “Israel must completely hold control of the entire strip, forever. We will annex a security perimeter, and open the gates of Gaza for voluntary immigration,” he said.

Framing the war as a generational and even global struggle, Smotrich cast his plan as an obligation to those killed and captured since October 7, to Israel’s southern communities and to what he described as the broader security of the Western world.

“We owe this to the fallen and their families, to the hostages and their families, to the heroic reservists, to the residents of the south, for the security of Israel, for the future of our children, for justice, for the Jews of the world, and for the security of the entire Western world. A decisive victory,” he said.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)