Smotrich

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich says there’s a “business plan” to turn Gaza into a “real estate bonanza.” Speaking at an urban renewal conference in Tel Aviv, the far-right minister said he is discussing with the Trump administration how to share the proceeds.

India’s finance minister calls for greater collaboration in ‘cybersecurity’ and ‘defence’ between the two countries.

Israel and India have signed a bilateral investment agreement to expand mutual trade during far-right Israeli Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich’s trip to the South Asian country, which deepened its ties with Israel under Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The agreement, signed in New Delhi by Smotrich and Indian Minister of Corporate Affairs Nirmala Sitharaman, aims to boost trade and investment flows between the two countries. Sitharaman stressed the need for greater collaboration in “cybersecurity, defence, innovation and high-technology”.

The deal marked “an important strategic step for our joint vision”, said Smotrich, who has been sanctioned by several Western countries for his links to illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.

“The agreement reached today between Israel and India reflects our economic growth, innovation and mutual prosperity,” he wrote on X.

“This agreement will open new opportunities for investors in both countries, strengthen Israeli exports, and provide businesses with the certainty and tools to grow in one of the world’s largest and fastest-growing markets.”

India’s Ministry of Finance described the deal as a “historic milestone”, adding that it will foster cooperation in “fintech innovation, infrastructure development, financial regulation, and digital payment connectivity”.

Bilateral trade stood at $3.9bn in 2024, while current mutual investments are worth about $800m, according to official figures. But the bulk of the trade between the two countries is in the domain of defence and security, with New Delhi being Israel’s largest weapons buyer.

Last year, Indian firms also sold Israel rockets and explosives during Israel’s war on Gaza, an Al Jazeera investigation revealed.

The agreement comes as New Delhi moves closer to Israel, even as Israel faces growing political isolation over its genocidal war on Gaza. India was one of the first countries to reach out to Israel after the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel led by Hamas, condemning it as “an act of terror”.

Indian authorities have cracked down on pro-Palestine protests, even criminalising them in some cases, while allowing pro-Israel rallies.

India still supports the so-called two-state solution for the resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict, but it has abstained from several United Nations resolutions that have been critical of Israeli rights violations against Palestinians.

In 2024, India also abstained from a UN General Assembly vote calling for an “immediate, unconditional and permanent” ceasefire in Gaza.

Indians make up the largest group of foreign students in Israel, while Israeli construction companies have sought permission to hire up to 100,000 Indian workers to replace Palestinians whose permits were revoked after Israel launched its brutal war on Gaza in October 2023.

India has also refused to condemn Israel’s war on Iran, and declined to support the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s (SCO) condemnation of Israeli attacks. But after United States President Donald Trump’s 50 percent tariffs on India, which took effect late last month, New Delhi this month signed an SCO declaration that condemned the US-Israeli bombing of Iran.

India has also moved to mend its ties with rival China, in a setback for years of US policy using New Delhi as a counterweight to Beijing.

China and India should be partners, not rivals, Chinese President Xi Jinping told Modi on the sidelines of the SCO summit in Tianjin.

Hamas condemns far-right Israeli Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s remarks as ‘an official call to exterminate’ Palestinians.

Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has called for Israel to annex the Gaza Strip if Hamas refuses to disarm, the latest push by an Israeli official to forcibly displace Palestinians and take complete control of the coastal enclave.

During a news conference on Thursday, Smotrich said if Hamas does not agree to surrender, disarm and release Israeli captives, Israel should annex a section of Gaza each week for four weeks.

He said Palestinians would first be told to move south in Gaza, followed by Israel imposing a siege on the territory’s north and centre regions, and ending with annexation.

“This can be achieved in three to four months,” said Smotrich, describing the measures as part of a plan to “win in Gaza by the end of the year”.

The far-right minister’s annexation push comes as the Israeli army has advanced deeper into Gaza City in an effort to seize the city and forcibly displace about one million Palestinians living there.

Israel’s intensified attacks on Gaza City have been widely condemned, with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warning last week that the campaign would cause “massive death and destruction”.

Meanwhile, Gaza City and the surrounding areas continue to experience famine as Israel continues to block food, water and other humanitarian aid from entering the Strip.

“Famine is no longer a looming possibility; it’s a present-day catastrophe,” Guterres said on Thursday.

“People are dying of hunger. Families are being torn apart by displacement and despair. Pregnant women are facing unimaginable risks, and the systems that sustain life – food, water, healthcare – have been systematically dismantled.”

Israel and its Western allies have long been pushing for Hamas to lay down its weapons, insisting that the Palestinian group cannot be involved in any future governance of Gaza.

Hamas rejected Smotrich’s remarks on Thursday, saying they represent “an official call to exterminate our people” as well as “an official admission of the use of starvation and siege against innocent civilians as a weapon”.

“Smotrich’s statement is not an isolated extremist opinion, but rather a declared government policy that has been implemented for nearly 23 months” of Israel’s war on Palestinians in the enclave, Hamas said in a statement.

“These statements expose the reality of the occupation to the world and confirm that what is happening in Gaza is not a ‘military battle’ but rather a project of genocide and mass displacement,” the group added, urging the international community to hold Israeli leaders accountable.

During his news conference, Smotrich called on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to adopt his annexation plan “in full immediately”.

Netanyahu did not comment publicly on Smotrich’s remarks. But the Israeli leader has alluded to a plan for Israel to “take control of all Gaza” and send troops to reoccupy the entire enclave.

Israel’s military has for weeks been issuing forcible evacuation notices to Palestinians in so-called “combat zones” to relocate to southern Gaza.

Smotrich, a major backer of Israel’s settler movement who himself lives in an illegal settlement in the occupied West Bank, has expressed support for re-establishing illegal settlements in the Gaza Strip that were dismantled in 2005.

He and other far-right members of Netanyahu’s governing coalition also have voiced staunch opposition to efforts to reach a deal to end Israel’s war on Gaza, threatening to topple the government if an agreement is reached.

“This reality definitively buries the idea of a Palestinian state.” Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced a plan to effectively split the occupied West Bank in half, approving thousands of new Jewish settler homes between occupied East Jerusalem and the Maale Adumim settlement.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced that he will move forward with the construction of 3,401 new settlement units in Area E1, located between Jerusalem and the Ma’ale Adumim settlement.

The decision comes despite international pressure against construction in the area beyond the Green Line and after a 20-year pause.

Smotrich’s plan aims to link Ma’ale Adumim with Jerusalem, cutting off Palestinian movement between Ramallah and Bethlehem. The area is considered strategic and could undermine any future political settlement.

Smotrich said: “Construction plans in the E1 area cancel the idea of a Palestinian state and continue the many steps we are taking on the ground as part of the de facto sovereignty plan we started with the formation of the government.”

He added: “After decades of international pressure and freezes, we are breaking agreements and linking Ma’ale Adumim with Jerusalem.”

READ: US House Speaker claims West Bank “rightful property of Jewish People”

The far-right minister said he will approve 3,000 new homes in the controversial E1 area project, hailing it as ‘Zionism at its best’.

Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has announced he will approve thousands of housing units in a highly controversial and long-delayed illegal settlement project in the occupied West Bank, saying the move “buries the idea of a Palestinian state”.

In a statement on Wednesday, Smotrich announced his intention to approve tenders to build more than 3,000 homes in the E1 area settlement project that would connect Jerusalem and the existing Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim, located several kilometres to the east.

“Approval of construction plans in E1 buries the idea of a Palestinian state and continues the many steps we are taking on the ground as part of the de facto sovereignty plan that we began implementing with the establishment of the government,” he said.

Smotrich, who is also a minister in Israel’s Ministry of Defence with broad responsibility for approving settlements in the occupied West Bank, hailed the project as “Zionism at its best”.

“After decades of international pressure and freezes, we are breaking conventions and connecting Maale Adumim to Jerusalem,” Smotrich added.

Israel Gantz, chairman of the Yesha Council – an umbrella organisation of illegal settlements in the West Bank – and head of the Binyamin Regional Council, also praised the “tremendous and historic achievement for the settlement movement”, according to Israel National News.

Gantz said it was a “true revolution in strengthening the settlement enterprise”, the outlet said.

Development of the E1 settlement – which is illegal under international law – has been frozen for decades.

Observers believe that its location will hinder the realisation of a future Palestinian state.

The planned settlement would effectively divide the occupied West Bank into northern and southern regions, preventing the establishment of a contiguous Palestinian territory connecting occupied East Jerusalem to major cities such as Bethlehem and Ramallah.

Israel postponed the plan in 2022 following US pressure. But in recent months, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government has approved road-widening projects in the area and begun restricting Palestinian access.

Maale Adumim mayor Guy Yifrach praised the new settlement, saying it will “connect Maale Adumim to Jerusalem and serve as a Zionist response of settlement and nation-building”.

“The Palestinians aimed to establish a stranglehold through illegal construction – this project will thwart that effort,” he said, according to Israel National News.

On Wednesday, Israeli anti-settlement watchdog Peace Now said a total of 4,030 new housing units had been approved in the occupied West Bank.

Some 730 are west of the existing Israeli settlement of Ariel, while 3,300 had been approved in a new Maale Adumim neighbourhood that will connect it “with the industrial zone to its east”.

“The 3,300 housing units in Maale Adumim represent an increase of about 33 percent in the settlement’s housing stock – an enormous expansion for a settlement whose population has been stagnant at around 38,000 for the past decade,” it said.

It added that the Maale Adumim extension raised “serious questions about the need for the E1 plan”.

Foreign minister says Slovenia acted after EU foreign ministers failed to agree on joint action against Israel.

Slovenia has banned far-right Israeli cabinet ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich from entering the country.

Foreign Minister Tanja Fajon declared the pair personae non gratae on Thursday in what she said was a first for a European Union country.

“We are breaking new ground,” she said.

In a statement, the Slovenian government accused Israel’s National Security Minister Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Smotrich of inciting “extreme violence and serious violations of the human rights of Palestinians” with “their genocidal statements”.

It also noted that both cabinet ministers “publicly advocate the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank, the forced evictions of Palestinians, and call for violence against the civilian Palestinian population”.

There was no immediate reaction from Israel’s government.

Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, key coalition partners in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, have drawn international criticism for their hard-line stance on the Gaza war and on illegal settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank.

Smotrich, who lives in a West Bank settlement, has supported the expansion of settlements and has called for the territory’s annexation.

Settlements are illegal under international law. Last July, the International Court of Justice ruled that Israel’s continued presence in occupied Palestinian territory was unlawful, a decision Israel has ignored.

Smotrich has previously called for “total annihilation” in Gaza and said that a Palestinian town in the West Bank should be “wiped out”. Ben-Gvir was an open admirer of Baruch Goldstein, an Israeli who massacred 29 Palestinians as they prayed in Hebron in 1994. He has been convicted multiple times by Israeli courts for “incitement to racism”.

Despite the ministers’ positions, Netanyahu relies heavily on support from the two and from their factions in parliament for the survival of his government.

On May 21, Slovenia’s President Natasa Pirc Musar told the European Parliament that the EU needed to take stronger action against Israel, condemning “the genocide” in Gaza.

Fajon said Slovenia had decided to make the move after EU foreign ministers did not agree on joint action against Israel over charges of human rights violations at a meeting in Brussels on Tuesday.

She said other measures were being prepared, without going into detail.

In June, Britain, Norway, Australia, New Zealand and Canada imposed sanctions on the two Israeli ministers, accusing them of inciting violence against Palestinians.

Last year, Slovenia announced it was recognising a Palestinian state, following on the heels of Norway, Spain, and the Republic of Ireland.