Israeli finance minister calls for Gaza occupation, population reduction

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Monday reiterated his controversial call for the occupation of the Gaza Strip and the reduction of its Palestinian population "by half within two years," according to media reports.

Speaking at a meeting of his far-right Religious Zionism Party, Smotrich's extreme proposal was reported by Channel 12 and Israel Hayom.

He promised to "reduce the number of Palestinian residents in the Gaza Strip by half within just two years," Israel Hayom reported.

Recently, Smotrich has repeatedly called for the occupation of Gaza, most recently on Nov. 18, when he urged the complete occupation of northern Gaza to force Hamas to release Israeli hostages after the military failed to free them through force.

"To bring back the kidnapped (Israeli hostages in Gaza), we must occupy northern Gaza entirely and inform Hamas that if they do not return them, we will stay there forever; thus, Gaza will lose a third of its territory," Smotrich said.

Tel Aviv has turned Gaza into the world's largest open-air prison, besieging it for 18 years and forcing approximately two million of its 2.3 million residents into catastrophic conditions with severe and deliberate shortages of food, water, and medicine.

"We will continue until Hamas is eradicated and an agreement is reached under which it surrenders," he added. "We will not stop (in Gaza) until we destroy our enemies and fully restore security to the State of Israel."

Despite the Israeli military's failure to achieve its goals in Gaza, including the return of its hostages and the destruction of Hamas's capabilities, Smotrich claimed, "By the end of the war, we will have complete freedom of action in Gaza, and we will not agree to a settlement that is not worth the paper it is written on."

Tel Aviv holds at least 9,500 Palestinians in its prisons and estimates that there are 101 Israeli prisoners in Gaza. Hamas announced that dozens of them were killed in indiscriminate Israeli airstrikes.

The families of Israeli prisoners in Gaza and the opposition accuse Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of refusing to end the war and withdraw from Gaza for fear of his coalition collapsing amid threats from extremist ministers to withdraw from it.

Israel has launched a genocidal war on the Gaza Strip following a Hamas attack last year, killing more than 44,230 people, most of them women and children, and injuring over 104,600.

The second year of genocide in Gaza has drawn growing international condemnation, with figures and institutions labeling the attacks and blocking of aid deliveries as a deliberate attempt to destroy a population.

On Thursday, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice over its brutal war on Gaza.