Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich claimed Monday that his Religious Zionism party was responsible for the Saturday decision to hold off before releasing Palestinian security prisoners, part of the ongoing hostage release-ceasefire deal with Hamas.

“Every day, I am convinced that we acted correctly” in not leaving the government, said Smotrich, who opposed the current deal, and received heat from some on the far right for not quitting outright upon its approval.

“Our influence on decision-making is very great, including the decision not to release the 600 terrorists on Saturday night,” he said. Israel has reportedly offered to free the inmates if Hamas promptly returns the bodies of four slain captives without an accompanying propaganda ceremony.

Smotrich made the claim in remarks to the press ahead of his far-right party’s weekly faction meeting, defending his decision to stay in the coalition.

The finance minister assailed the Hamas ceremonies, which have been attended by uniformed, masked and armed terrorists who have paraded the hostages around on stage. “The only reason you cannot see the frightened faces of Hamas terrorists is simply because they cover them out of fear,” Smotrich said.

Hamas knows “very well that their time on earth is limited, until the State of Israel returns to fight with full force, speed and lethality that will overwhelm and destroy them,” continued Smotrich, who has called repeatedly for Israel to return to fighting Hamas, rather than see the hostage release-ceasefire deal through to its full implementation.

“You will be surprised by the power, sharpness, and lethality of the operation to occupy Gaza when we decide that the time has come to renew it,” said Smotrich, who has threatened to resign if the war does not resume.

The finance minister also took credit for the ongoing anti-terror operation in the West Bank, stating that “after two years of the settlement revolution that we are leading in the Settlement Administration, we are leading, together with the defense minister, a change in the security conception as well.”

The IDF is currently engaged in an ongoing major offensive in the northern West Bank, dubbed Operation Iron Wall, which was launched on January 21.

Additionally, Smotrich responded to the massive public funeral of former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut on Sunday, saying it showed just how weak the Lebanese terrorist group is following its recent war with Israel.

Hezbollah is a “beaten and bruised enemy that did not even dare to bury the arch-terrorist leader we eliminated for five months,” he said.

Sunday’s funeral was attended by tens of thousands of people, but only junior Hezbollah officials were present while the group’s senior leaders were “hiding like mice” out of “fear that we will eliminate them,” Smotrich added.

“And the truth is that they are right. God willing, we will eliminate them at the first opportunity. What we saw yesterday is a movement that invites the world to its own funeral procession in an amazing show of self-awareness,” he said.

Opposition party leaders, in their own faction meetings, assailed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and accused him of playing politics on a number of topics at a time of national emergency.

National Unity chairman Benny Gantz called last week’s botched plot to bomb multiple buses in the Tel Aviv metropolis a “wake-up call,” and accused the prime minister of playing politics at a cost to national security.

Speaking about the bus bombings, Gantz said Israel must “destroy the terrorist nests that are minutes away” from Israeli communities by “pouring” additional forces into the West Bank.

Three empty buses exploded in quick succession in depots in the Tel Aviv suburbs of Bat Yam and Holon on Thursday night, and two more bombs were discovered on additional buses in Holon. No casualties occurred as a result of the explosions.

To defeat terror, “thousands more fighters are needed,” but Netanyahu’s government “is busy making political deals at the expense of security and the economy,” Gantz alleged.

Netanyahu has repeatedly promised his ultra-Orthodox partners that he would pass an enlistment bill regulating the status of yeshiva students whose longtime IDF deferrals were struck down by the High Court of Justice last summer.

“Thousands have been injured and killed and the IDF is desperate for more soldiers. The reservists are returning [to service] for the fifth and sixth time. The best of our sons are risking their lives again and again and the prime minister is not willing to risk the integrity of the coalition” by drafting Haredim, Gantz contended.

“Where will the soldiers who will unleash hell on Gaza — while at the same time operating in Tulkarm, southern Lebanon, and the Syrian Golan — come from? A year and a half into the most complex war in our history, and the October 7 government is not expanding the ranks. The government is playing for time – and we will all pay the price.”

Yisrael Beytenu party chairman Avigdor Liberman also lashed out at Netanyahu ahead of his faction meeting, saying he would not give the political echelon a pass, as he spoke about the military’s investigations into its failures during the lead-up to Hamas’s October 7, 2023, onslaught, which are due to be presented this week.

“Who will interrogate the chief of staff and his deputy,” as well as other senior Israel Defense Forces officials, the former defense minister asked.

“With great power comes great responsibility,” he continued, arguing that a probe into Israel’s military “cannot be presented” without also investigating the country’s civilian leadership.

“Who will interrogate the prime minister, the head of the national security council and the prime minister’s military secretary about the greatest disaster that has ever befallen the State of Israel?” he asked.

“The only body capable of conducting an objective investigation is not people who are subordinate to the government, but only a state commission of inquiry that has the necessary resources and capabilities,” he said, adding that if such a body “is not established during this government, it will be established by the next government.”

Netanyahu has repeatedly ruled out investigating October 7 until the war is over and has firmly rejected establishing a state inquiry at all, claiming half of the public would not have faith in its findings, despite polls showing most of the public supports such an inquiry.

After the High Court of Justice demanded the government hold a meeting to discuss the issue, a meeting earlier this month ended with a move to postpone making a decision on the matter until May.