Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich signaled Sunday night that he’ll keep his Religious Zionism party in the coalition, despite disagreeing with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to ramp up humanitarian aid to Gaza.

The finance minister sent a message to his party’s lawmakers portraying the increase in aid as a tactical step ahead of a broader military campaign against Hamas.

Smotrich said the most important question was whether the government is committed to “defeating Hamas.”

“In war, it isn’t right to weigh political considerations,” he added. “We’re advancing a good strategic step — I don’t want to elaborate on it. Within a short time, we’ll know if it will succeed and where we go next.”

The message appeared to calm a political storm that had been brewing since Saturday, when Netanyahu took a series of steps to significantly increase the flow of aid into Gaza over the objections of Smotrich and another senior far-right Netanyahu ally, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir. Reports of starvation, and deaths from severe malnutrition, have surged in the enclave, raising international pressure on Israel to allow in more supplies.

Israel denied responsibility for the acute hunger in Gaza. But since Saturday, it has opened up new delivery routes for aid, airdropped supplies into the Strip, and instituted 10-hour “humanitarian pauses” in population centers.

Smotrich and Ben Gvir have, throughout the war, rejected such measures, casting them as a lifeline to Hamas, which Israel has accused of stealing aid. When Netanyahu convened a small group of ministers on Saturday to sketch out the new policy, he

© The Times of Israel