Finance Minister Betzalel Smotrich addressed the war in the south this evening (Sunday) at a press conference, where he said he took responsibility for the failure that led to the lethal surprise attack by Hamas.
“Citizens of Israel, I take responsibility for what was and what will be,” Smotrich said. “We are currently in a very difficult time, a difficult time for all citizens of Israel. The massacre that struck us was among the most terrifying we’ve known. Such cruelty is inconceivable, which the world has not seen since the Holocaust. We need to admit with honestly, pain, and our head bowed – we failed, the state leadership and the defense establishment. We failed in protecting the security of our residents. We did not succeed in realizing the unwritten contract between state and citizens and now it is stained in blood.”
“After such a terrible and difficult massacre, the whole enlightened world understands how inconceivable is the cruelty of our neighbors, how the threat they present us with is not just a threat to the State of Israel, but to the whole advanced, western world. How the only choice we face is the complete destruction of Amalek, of Nazism, of Hamas-ISIS, of evil and wickedness,” he added. “This is not only the only choice we face – this is the sole obligation we face now.”
He also said that “the heart is torn and goes out to the families of the captives and the missing. We are committed to working for their safety and return home. People of Israel, we feel pain and tears but let no-one be fooled – we will win, with God’s help. Together, everyone will fight shoulder to shoulder, destroy the terror organizations, and remove the threat from the State of Israel and the citizens of Israel.”
According to him, “the goals of our war are the destruction of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, period. We will not agree to less than this – we will not agree to containment, to arrangement, or any other whitewashed expression, aside from crushing victory and the physical destruction of Hamas in Gaza.”
“The time will come – of accounting, of preconceptions, of the Oslo Accords, through the Disengagement and the flight from Gaza and all the tactical and strategic moves, including the errors and failures of the recent period and last few days, which ultimately led this thing to blow up in our faces. Now is the time for unity and a time for victory,” he summarized. “The State of Israel is entirely united behind the IDF and behind a leadership which with God’s help will bring victory.”