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Israel’s ultranationalist finance minister has called for the closure of a US base overseeing the Gaza ceasefire and urged Israel to re-establish Jewish settlements in the strip, adding to growing criticism of Donald Trump’s postwar plans from Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
Speaking at a ceremony on Monday, Bezalel Smotrich insisted that the Palestinian enclave belonged to Israel and said Israel should impose military rule in the territory.
“Gaza is ours, and its future will affect our future more than anyone else’s,” he said at the inauguration of a new Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank. “Therefore, we must take responsibility for what happens there, impose a military government and complete the mission.”
The Civil-Military Coordination Centre in Kiryat Gat in south-eastern Israel was set up in October to bring together staff from dozens of countries working on plans for the future of the Palestinian enclave, which has been devastated by Israel’s two-year offensive against Hamas.
But Smotrich, who heads one of two extreme-right parties in Netanyahu’s government, said Trump’s postwar plans for Gaza ran counter to Israel’s interests and that the CMCC should be shuttered.
“We . . . must explain to [Trump] that his plan is bad for the State of Israel and cancel it,” Smotrich said. “The time has come to dismantle the headquarters in Kiryat Gat.”
He added that in closing the CMCC, which is staffed by personnel from around 60 states and organisations, Israel would be able to remove representatives from “countries like Egypt and Britain that are hostile to Israel and undermine its security”.
The UK was one of several countries that imposed sanctions on Smotrich and his fellow far-right politician Itamar Ben-Gvir last year for “repeated incitement of violence against Palestinian civilians”. Smotrich lives in a West Bank settlement that is illegal under international law.
The Israeli prime minister’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Smotrich’s remarks.
Trump helped broker a fragile truce between Israel and Hamas last year, halting the deadliest war in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and setting out a 20-point plan for its aftermath.
The first phase of the plan, which involved an end to the fighting and the release of all the living and dead Israeli hostages held by Hamas, has been completed bar the return of one dead hostage.
But the second phase of the plan, which is meant to involve the disarmament of Hamas and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, is expected to be far more complex.
As part of his push to end the war, Trump is seeking to establish a “Board of Peace” that will have the ability to mediate in global conflicts and oversee a technocratic committee that will run Gaza.
However, the multi-layered structure has drawn criticism from Israel, with Netanyahu saying on Saturday that the Gaza executive committee, which is subordinate to the Board of Peace and includes Turkey’s foreign minister and former spy chief Hakan Fidan and Qatari diplomat Ali Al-Thawadi, had “not been co-ordinated with Israel and is contrary to its policy”.
Smotrich echoed that criticism, accusing the Turks and Qataris of being too close to Hamas and claiming that they were “no different from it in their desire to destroy the State of Israel”.