Finance Minister Smotrich Calls for Shutting Gaza Coordination Center

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday to shut the US-led multinational coordinating center that supports US President Donald Trump’s plan to end the Gaza war. Washington established the Civil Military Coordination Centre (CMCC) last October as a center for civilian and military personnel from other countries to work alongside US and Israeli officials on post-war Gaza planning. “The time has come to dismantle the headquarters in Kiryat Gat,” said Smotrich, the chair of the far-right Religious Zionism party, in remarks shared by his office to media, referring to the southern Israeli city where the center is based. By dismantling the headquarters, Israel will be able to remove representatives stationed there from “countries like Egypt and Britain that are hostile to Israel and undermine its security,” and will instead be able to do what is best for the Jewish state, Smotrich said. He declined to explain why he had singled out the United Kingdom for criticism. The Prime Minister’s Office, the US State Department and the US military’s Central Command did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the remarks, nor did the British and Egyptian foreign ministries. US Central Command in December said that 60 countries and organizations were represented at the center. The CMCC has also been tasked with facilitating humanitarian aid entering Gaza since the start of a ceasefire in early October 2025. The US-led CMCC was established after Trump announced his 20-point plan to end the war. Germany, France, and Canada are also among the countries that have sent personnel there. Smotrich, speaking at an event marking the establishment of the new Jewish settlement of Yatziv in the West Bank, said that although Trump deserved Israel’s gratitude for his part in returning the hostages held by Hamas and other terror groups in two separate deals, his plan for Gaza “is bad for the state of Israel” and must be shelved. Instead, he said, Hamas should be given a “very short” ultimatum to disarm and go into exile, and once that ultimatum expires, the military should storm Gaza with “full force” to destroy the terror group. “Gaza is ours and its future will affect our future more than anyone else’s,” he insisted, and, as such, Jerusalem must “take responsibility for what is happening there” and “impose military rule” over its roughly 2.3 million residents. The far-right minister’s address focused primarily on making the case for reversing the “sin” of Israel’s 2005 disengagement from Gaza, a central tenet of his political career. Boasting that the government had “correct[ed] the sin of expulsion,” from a number of northern West Bank settlements, which took place concurrently with the withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, Smotrich argued that “there is one sin that we have not yet been able to correct, even when it seemed that we had the opportunity and the duty to do so – the expulsion from Gush Katif.” Gush Katif was the bloc of 17 settlements located within the Gaza Strip, which were home to around 8,600 Jews. Israel withdrew from the enclave and evacuated the settlements in August 2005. He pointed to the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel as proof that Israel was required to return to the long-gone settlements along the Gaza coastline. “Wasn’t the most terrible massacre that has befallen the Jewish people since the terrible Holocaust enough” to make Israel’s leadership understand what must be done, he asked, insisting that Israel did not pay a price in blood over the past two years of war “so that the Turks and Qataris, who still sponsor Hamas today and are no different from it in their desire to destroy the State of Israel, can sit on our fence.” “Erdogan is [former Hamas leader Yahya] Sinwar. Qatar is Hamas. There is no difference,” he declared, referencing the United States’ decision to include Qatari and Turkish representatives on the executive committee of the Board of Peace that will oversee the postwar management of Gaza. “It is either us or them,” Smotrich warned. “Either full Israeli control, the destruction of Hamas and the continued suppression of terrorism over time, encouraging the enemy’s emigration abroad and permanent Israeli settlement or, God forbid, squandering the efforts and costs of the war and waiting for the next round.” Trump’s plan for the Gaza Strip states that members of Hamas who commit to peaceful coexistence and to decommission their weapons will be given amnesty. Those who want to leave Gaza will be given safe passage to other countries. The White House last week announced that the president’s plan to end the war was moving to the second phase, which would include the demilitarization and reconstruction of Gaza. Under the initial phase of the plan, Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire in Gaza that went into effect in October. Hamas also released the remaining living hostages abducted from Israel during the October 2023 assault, who had been held in Gaza since then. The remains of all but one deceased hostage, Police Master Sgt. Ran Gvili, were handed over as well. Gvili’s loved ones have demanded that Trump’s plan not progress to its second phase until his body is returned. Since the ceasefire started, Israel has repeatedly carried out air strikes and shelling in the Palestinian enclave, in response to what it says were violations of the ceasefire agreement, including attempts to approach troops stationed on the Israeli-controlled side of the Yellow Line. The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says that over 460 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the ceasefire, although the figure does not differentiate between combatants and civilians and cannot be independently verified. Three Israeli soldiers have been killed in the same period.