{"id":515392,"date":"2026-06-28T17:29:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T17:29:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/515392\/"},"modified":"2026-06-28T17:29:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T17:29:08","slug":"bezalel-smotrich-claims-hamas-hostages-returned-thanks-to-his-gaza-deal-opposition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/515392\/","title":{"rendered":"Bezalel Smotrich claims Hamas hostages returned thanks to his Gaza deal opposition"},"content":{"rendered":"

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said that the hostages are home thanks to him, claiming a critical role in how the war played out in an interview for Nadav Perry’s podcast on Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that without me, the war in Gaza<\/a> would have ended even before Rafah,\u201d he said live on the “All In” podcast that Perry conducts.<\/p>\n

Smotrich referenced a deal that emerged after the January 2025 negotiations, under which only eight hostages would be returned. He said he put his foot down with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu<\/a> and said the deal would not happen.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Had I not drawn a red line at that moment and told Netanyahu, \u2018there is no such thing,\u2019 we would still be negotiating with Hamas over one more hostage and then another,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

This comes after Smotrich<\/a> historically opposed prioritizing hostage negotiations, saying in February 2024 that it was not the most important thing to consider in the war.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Why is that important now?” he said. “Hamas<\/a> must be destroyed. It is very important, but you also understand that statements such as \u2018at any cost\u2019 are a problem.”<\/p>\n

He held this line through October 2025, when government officials approved the deal to return the remaining hostages in Gaza. Smotrich opposed the plan, joined by ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir, Orit Strock, Yitzhak Wasserlauf, and Amichai Eliyahu.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said that the hostages are home thanks to him, claiming a critical role in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":515393,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[49,1982,42,12428,62,61,43,58,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-515392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-benjamin-netanyahu","tag-bezalel-smotrich","tag-headlines","tag-hostage","tag-hostage-deal","tag-israel-hamas-war","tag-news","tag-the-october-7-massacre","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=515392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/515393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}