Bennett in the Negev: "A country that controls the airspace of Tehran must know how to seal its borders"

Last May, former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett stood next to MK Yoav Segalovitz near the settlement of Omer, shortly after the announcement of the union between him and the chairman of "Yesh Atid" Yair Lapid. Now he has arrived again in the Negev, this time to the settlement of Carmit, following gunfire that residents in the place suffered from the direction of Bedouin settlements.

Bennett referred to the joining of MK Segalovitz, one of the most prominent people who fought crime in the Arab population, to the chairman of "Ra'am" Mansour Abbas, and said that "Yoav is a dear man. I respect any decision of his. I have no doubt that in the next government we will bring the best people in the country."

Bennett referred to the epidemic of arms smuggling in the area, and said that according to his plan, soldiers will operate inside Israeli settlements against illegal weapons. In addition, compounds, neighborhoods, or houses that have received intelligence indication of being involved in smuggling, whether from Shin Bet or Aman, will be declared a closed police-security zone. Bennett announced that under him, arms smuggling will be declared as terror events, and will be treated accordingly with the involvement of Shin Bet - this despite the fact that Shin Bet is already operating in the field.

"Hundreds of thousands of illegal weapons threaten the security of Israeli citizens, — said Bennett. — I am raising a bright red flag here. We will define the threat of arms smuggling as terror and fight it. To fix this, many actions are required, but they all start with one decision: to stop treating the illegal weapon threat as a criminal problem, to define it as a national security threat, as terror. Whoever treats this as a criminal event, and that is the current government, is still captive to the conception."

As mentioned, despite Bennett's statement, Shin Bet is already involved in activities against arms smuggling at the borders and also inside Israel. "We will confiscate the illegal weapons and the criminals will be punished as terrorists," claimed Bennett. "The situation today is so neglected that the state does not even have an organized estimate regarding the severity of the problem. It is not known how many illegal weapons are circulating inside the State of Israel. The estimate is that there are about half a million."

He also said that "80% of smuggling attempts are done by heavy cargo drones where it is possible to actually carry large weights and of which the overwhelming majority is not thwarted. The army, which is collapsing under the burden of fighting on all fronts, cannot thwart the arms smuggling routes because it does not have enough soldiers and does not have enough technological means to intercept the drones. The illegal weapon endangers the citizens of Israel twice, because it reaches both terrorist organizations and criminal organizations. The State of Israel that can control the airspace of Tehran must know how to seal its borders and clean out of the State of Israel all the illegal weapons. We will build a combined war room of the IDF, Shin Bet, Israel Police, and tax authorities, and we will apply to the smugglers a detention regime for security offenses."

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Bennett stayed in Nahal Oz: "Did not promise anything, but listened"

As part of his visit to the envelope, Bennett stayed overnight in Kibbutz Nahal Oz at the home of the settlement's security officer. Bennett wrote on his Instagram account that "In light of the observers' warnings about Hamas's buildup, I decided that I would spend this night here, in the home of one of the residents. Hearing from the residents here about Hamas that is growing stronger before their eyes, and great anger over the lack of lessons learned in the absence of an inquiry committee, but there is also a lot of determination to build life here anew."

On behalf of the kibbutz, it was stated that "On Saturday night, former Prime Minister Bennett arrived at the kibbutz. During the visit, he was hosted at the home of the kibbutz's security officer, and held a meeting and conversation with members of the security forum and office holders in the settlement. During the meeting, the kibbutz representatives raised deep concerns about the re-buildup of Hamas, and expressed serious concern about any possibility of returning to the containment policy that led to the October 7 disaster."

"The forum members made it unequivocally clear that the community, which returned to its home and paths, will no longer be able to agree to such a policy, which constitutes a direct threat to their lives. Bennett expressed full agreement with the kibbutz's position, and said: terrorist organizations must be eliminated. A terrorist who does not pose a direct threat today - will be a threat tomorrow, and therefore he must be eliminated at any given moment."

In the kibbutz, they praised Bennett: "We want to praise him for the time he dedicated to the community and for the willingness to come, listen, and hear directly, up close and without intermediaries, about the challenges and concerns that the residents of Nahal Oz are dealing with. The kibbutz's door is open to anyone who is running for the leadership of the country and is interested in holding a direct and intimate dialogue with the community leadership."

A resident of the kibbutz told Ynet: "Bennett had a conversation on Friday with several security officers from the envelope on Zoom. They described to him what the needs are and then he said 'I want to sleep and feel what it's like to sleep in the envelope', our security officer said to him half-jokingly 'come on, come' - and he came. He surprised everyone here. The former Prime Minister comes to sleep at a family's home here in the kibbutz - that's not something that happens every day. He was welcomed. Lots of residents arrived. Those who agree with him, those who don't agree, but he walked around here like a kibbutz member, talked to people, invested. It moved me, you really need to give him credit for this. It's not taken for granted. They mainly talked to him about security. He didn't promise anything, but he listened. We are not naive and understand that we are before elections, but he also arrived before, so it didn't give the impression that it was just that. He did say that if he is in a key position we will not deal with security here."

The resident referred to the possible scenario that the IDF will withdraw due to the Peace Council plan, and said: "On the day the IDF will have to leave, we will be left with this problem called the Gaza Strip. We want a real solution. Government of Israel - you promised to eliminate Hamas? So eliminate it."