Photo Credit: Oren Ben Hakoon/Flash90

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich released the following [translated] statement in response to the tripartite statement by the US, Egypt and Qatar to release Hamas terrorists and stop the war to destroy Hamas:

“You have to read it to believe it, and above all to understand the twisted and dangerous starting point of those who pressure us to stop the war and surrender. The “mediators” actually wrote in their announcement yesterday that “the time has come to conclude the cease-fire agreement in Gaza and the release of the abductees and prisoners” while creating an illusory symmetry between the Israeli abductees – men, women and children – who were abducted from their beds with terrible cruelty, and despicable terrorists who murdered Jews and are serving their sentence for it in prison?!

“So not really. The time has come to release the abductees a long time ago. The time has not really come to release the abominable terrorists who killed the Jews. And above all, the time has not really come for a surrender deal that would stop the war before the destruction of the Nazis of Hamas and Daesh and allow them to rehabilitate and return to murdering Jews again.

“The time has not come for a dangerous trap in which the “intermediaries” dictate a “formula” to us and impose a surrender agreement on us that will drain the many bloodshed we shed in the most just war we are waging, a “deal” that will leave Hezbollah on the fences of the residents of the north and reward terrorism and Iranian attacks against us, a deal That will play down Israel’s deterrence and its image in the Middle East, will present it as a weak patron state and alienate from it its friends in the moderate Arab countries that made peace agreements with it out of appreciation for its strength and independence.

“I call on the Prime Minister not to fall into this trap and not to agree to a shift, even the slightest, from the red lines he set just recently, and they are also very problematic.”

“It is time to bring immediate relief both to the long-suffering people of Gaza as well as the long-suffering hostages and their families,” the three states declared in their statement. “The time has come to conclude the ceasefire and hostages and detainees release deal.”

Detainees is a reference to captured terrorists.

The statement was signed by U.S. President Joe Biden, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.