National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir implored the Israel Defense Forces on Sunday to attack Hamas’s food warehouses and cut off electrical power to bring about the release of the 59 hostages held in Gaza.
“Otzma Yehudit stood by its principles ..., the prime minister understood I was right,” Ben-Gvir told the Kan Reshet Bet public radio channel on Sunday, in one of his first interviews since returning to his position in Israel’s coalition government on Wednesday evening.
Ben-Gvir and fellow Otzma Yehudit Party ministers resigned from the government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Jan. 21 in protest of the ceasefire and hostage release deal with Hamas in Gaza.
On March 18, hours after the truce collapsed and Jerusalem resumed military operations in the Strip, Otzma Yehudit reached an agreement with Netanyahu’s ruling Likud Party to return to the government and their previously-held ministerial positions.
“These captives are my brothers,” Ben-Gvir said of his opposition to a resumption of negotiations with Hamas to free the 59 hostages. “I want them to be released no less than you.”
Instead of resuming talks, Netanyahu should order the Air Force to hit Hamas’s five-month supply of accumulated aid, he said.
“I say to the prime minister: Let’s bomb the food reserves in Gaza, let’s bomb all the power lines in Gaza. Why are there lights in Gaza? There must not be a single light. Stop the electricity,” said Ben-Gvir.
He noted that “even when the Israeli government—unfortunately, and contrary to my opinion, I was the only one who opposed it—brought them tons and tons of humanitarian aid,” the hostages that returned under the auspices of the last deal revealed that they did not eat.
“They didn’t give them food; they left them in the dark,” said Ben-Gvir.
The Israeli government announced on March 2 that it had suspended all aid to Gaza after the Hamas terrorist group rejected the ceasefire extension proposed by U.S. Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff. Jerusalem has also said it would stop supplying electricity to the Strip.
Israel believes that enough food, water, fuel and medical supplies entered Gaza during the truce to last some five months.
