Smotrich: We will liberate Gaza and settle it

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said today (Monday) at the end of the Jerusalem Day flag parade that Israel is liberating the Gaza Strip and would return to settle it.

Here is his full statement:

"The more we thank the Master of the Universe for all the good and abundance and light that He shines upon us, the more we can also ask of Him for more and more and more good. We, from this place, from which everything begins, a remnant of our Holy Temple and the holy place that is upon this mountain. We from here thank the Holy One, Blessed be He, for the momentum of building and development and the uniqueness of the city.

"And from this great thanksgiving, all of us now give strength to tens of thousands of our heroic fighters who now, right now are fighting in Gaza to restore our security, to bring us victory, to straighten our stature, our national honor, our national pride!

"There are those who are somewhat afraid of victory. We are not afraid of victory. Let us give strength to our brave and heroic fighters! We are conquering the Land of Israel, we are liberating Gaza, we are settling Gaza, we are defeating the enemy, we say thank you to the Holy One, Blessed be He, and we ask of Him for even more good. With God's help, from the unity of Jerusalem, from the holiness of Jerusalem, from the joy of Jerusalem, may we merit with God's help to expand the borders of the Land of Israel to complete redemption and to the building of the Holy Temple here speedily in our days. Amen."

Prime Minister Netanyahu has never shown any indication of favoring a resettling of the Gaza Strip by Jewish Israelis after the Disengagement of 2005 which removed the settlers from Gush Katif and elsewhere.