Finance Minister and member of the Security Cabinet, Bezalel Smotrich, addressed a question from a Haaretz reporter at the party meeting, on the conduct a war and the fact that so far all the hostages have not been returned, Hamas has not been crushed, and the goals of the war have not yet been fully achieved. Smotrich rejected the claims of lack of success in the military campaign and stressed that the war is a process that requires patience. "You say that there has been no military solution to terrorism since the establishment of the state, and this stems from impatience – everything now, now, now. But the truth is that we have achieved fantastic military achievements in this war. We dismantled Gaza and Hamas, we attacked Iran, we completely changed the situation vis-à-vis Hezbollah, and within a week – an army that Assad had built for decades in Syria collapsed. This is a new reality, and it cannot be created in one day." Related articles: 'The Left is to blame for all of Israel's disasters' 'IDF is deluding the Cabinet' Former Chief of Staff hid info from Security Cabinet Relocation admin. will implement Trump's plan Smotrich did not disregard the failures in the war, but noted that they were being addressed: "I am the first to shout about the colossal failure of October 7th. We don't need you to say where we failed. I have insisted that we fix it all, and the Chief of Staff has gone home over that. But at the same time, we have achieved enormous achievements and we are not stopping here." He also referred to the security policies of previous governments and claimed that Israel is paying a heavy price for years of wrong decisions: "A bunch of fools threw endless stones into the well: they brought the PLO in from Tunisia, gave them weapons, dismantled Jewish settlements, fled from Gaza, fled from Lebanon, and promised us that Hezbollah's missiles would make the decision. Now, it’s going to take time, but we won't stop until we take out all these stones. We will dive into that well for 500 days, 600 days, 700 days – until there is no Hamas, there is no Hezbollah, there is no Iranian threat and there is no terror in Judea and Samaria." On the future strategic approach, Smotrich said, "Israel's security stability will look completely different. We suffered a severe blow on October 7th, but we recovered quickly and said, ‘it won't happen again.’ There will be no more setbacks, there will be no surrenders, there will be no losses in the war. We will teach our enemies that whoever messes around with us will be wiped out, and that is exactly what we are doing." In conclusion, Smotrich clarified that Israel is committed to continuing the fighting until its goals are fully achieved: "We will take all the time necessary – but this time it will be until the end."
