Smotrich urges Israeli military to repeat its Gaza campaign in the West Bank

JERUSALEM — Israel’s far-right finance minister has called for a full-scale military campaign in the occupied West Bank, saying Israeli soldiers should carry out there what they did in Gaza and dismantle the Palestinian Authority.

In an interview with Ynet News published on Sunday, Bezalel Smotrich said Israel needs to “go to war in Judea and Samaria” — the biblical terminology he used for the territory — repeating that the goal would be “to dismantle the Palestinian Authority, which is a terror authority.” The remarks were published by Al Jazeera on 27 September 2026, a day after Israeli authorities announced sweeping movement restrictions across the West Bank.

Smotrich, a senior figure in the governing coalition, has a long record of controversial positions on Palestinian affairs. He has publicly opposed any recognition of a Palestinian state, and he was present in September at the inauguration of the new Israeli outpost of Maale Arugot near Bethlehem, described in the territories as illegal. The visit illustrates how far-right ministers have used their public office not only to make speeches but to cement facts on the ground.

The interview comments came in response to a question about how Israel should respond to rising “security tensions” in the West Bank. According to the source report, Israeli violence against Palestinians has been steadily increasing since Israel launched its war on Gaza in October 2023, and has intensified significantly in the current year alone.

Asked what the army should do next, Smotrich said authorities “need to tell” Israeli forces: “Just as you dismantled Hamas in Gaza, there won’t be terror infrastructure in Judea and Samaria.” He listed the outcome in a three-part refrain: “No terrorists, no weapons, no tunnels.”

The language is significant for several reasons. It frames the West Bank — where the Palestinian Authority exercises limited self-government and where no Israeli military occupation formally applies — on the same terms as Gaza, and it treats the dismantling of the Palestinian Authority as a military objective rather than a political one. It also follows the pattern of rhetoric used during the Gaza war, in which infrastructure such as tunnels was presented as proof of a security threat requiring overwhelming force.

Behind the minister’s words lies a documented surge in settler violence. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs recorded more than 1,330 settler-related attacks on Palestinians between January and late July 2026 — an average of six attacks a day and the highest rate in roughly two decades.

Settler groups, often supported or protected by Israeli soldiers, have attacked Palestinians in a range of ways, including shootings, besieging homes and other forms of communal violence that experts have described as “pogroms.” Rights groups warn that settlers are increasingly armed with military-issued weaponry and wear military uniforms during attacks, blurring the line between settler and soldier and complicating efforts to hold anyone accountable.

That violence creates a feedback loop with the security argument. Smotrich was answering a question about security, but the fastest-growing source of insecurity in the West Bank, according to UN data, is Israeli and settler violence rather than Palestinian attacks — a point rights advocates have repeatedly made in response to Israeli claims that the territory must be militarised for safety’s sake.

The timing of his comments is also notable. They came as Israel’s military announced a comprehensive closure across the occupied West Bank, which the authorities justified by the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. The restrictions, which limit Palestinian movement, are set to remain in place until 3 October, effectively freezing large parts of daily life in the territories for about a week.

In parallel, in occupied East Jerusalem, hundreds of Israelis stormed the courtyards of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound on Sunday under heavy protection from Israeli police. The Palestinian news agency Wafa reported that the Israelis entered through the Moroccan Gate and performed Talmudic rituals, as Israeli forces tightened restrictions around the mosque and across Jerusalem’s Old City.

Taken together, the comments, the closures and the raid on Al-Aqsa point in one direction. Smotrich’s call for a Gaza-style campaign in the West Bank would, if carried out, mean the destruction of Palestinian governing institutions at a time when settler attacks are already at a two-decade high and when movement restrictions are being tightened in the name of a religious festival. For Palestinians, the immediate effects of such rhetoric are the daily ones — curfews, blocked roads and blocked access to holy sites — while for Israeli politics, it signals that the far right is now pushing war aims openly, not only settlement policy.