Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich considered on Monday that the death of two million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip from starvation “may be just and moral” to return the Israeli prisoners.

With American support, Israel has been waging a war on Gaza since October 7, 2023, which has resulted in more than 131,000 Palestinian martyrs and wounded, most of them children and women, and more than 10,000 missing, amid massive destruction and famine that has claimed the lives of dozens of children, in one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the world.

Israeli Channel 12 (private) quoted Smotrich as saying at a conference organized by the newspaper “Israel Hayom”: “We are bringing aid (to Gaza); because there is no other option.”

For the 18th year, Israel has been besieging the Gaza Strip, and its war has forced about two million of its 2.3 million Palestinian residents to flee in catastrophic conditions, with severe and deliberate shortages of food, water and medicine.

Smotrich, leader of the far-right Religious Zionism party, added: “No one will allow us to cause the death of two million civilians from hunger, even if it is just and moral, until our hostages are returned.”

Tel Aviv is holding at least 9,500 Palestinians in its prisons, and estimates that there are 115 Israeli prisoners in Gaza, while Hamas announced the killing of more than 70 prisoners in random Israeli raids.

Smotrich considered that “it is impossible to destroy Hamas militarily and civilly without controlling humanitarian aid.”

He called for the Israeli army to assume responsibility for distributing international humanitarian aid in Gaza during the war.

He also renewed his opposition to concluding any ceasefire agreement and prisoner exchange with Palestinian factions in Gaza.

“We all want the kidnapped to return, but the deal (currently on the table) only returns a small number of the kidnapped, so it is unfair and immoral, and endangers the security of the state,” he said.

The opposition, the families of the prisoners, and security and military officials in Israel accuse Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of obstructing any proposed agreement to prevent the disintegration of his ruling coalition and the loss of his position. Far-right ministers, including Smotrich, are threatening to topple the government if it accepts an agreement that ends the war.

Smotrich also expressed his opposition to the release of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Israeli prisoners in Gaza.

“I believe they should not be released (…) they will go back to killing Jews,” he said.

He renewed his demand for the start of Israeli settlement in Gaza, saying: “I did not seek to define settlement in Gaza as part of the goals of the war. But I am allowed to say my ambition: where there is no settlement, there is no security.”

The United Nations considers settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories “illegal,” and warns that they undermine the chances of resolving the conflict according to the principle of a two-state solution (Palestinian and Israeli), and has been calling for a halt to them for decades, to no avail.