Ministers eye Gaza settlements
JERUSALEM: Thousands of Israelis, including far-right ministers and allies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, gathered in Jerusalem on Sunday to call for the re-establishment of Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip.
Mr Netanyahu in official statements has rejected resettlement in the Palestinian territory, where Israeli forces battle Hamas militants, but the rally shows that the once-fringe position has gained momentum within his hardright government.
“If we don’t want another Oct 7, we need to... control the territory,” said National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, alluding to the deadly Hamas attack that sparked the war, now in its fourth month.
The firebrand politician said Israel should “encourage voluntary emigration” of Palestinians from Gaza, echoing past remarks that drew sharp rebuke from close ally the United States and the wider international community.
Several participants carried guns, while outside the convention centre vendors sold t-shirts that read: “Gaza is part of the land of Israel.”
Speakers at the rally, attended by members of Mr Netanyahu’s party and several other ministers, exhorted the premier to make their contentious dream a reality.
Some advocated the deportation of Gaza’s Palestinians and declared that settlements were the only way to ensure security for Israelis.
“The Oslo Accords are dead, the people of Israel live,” chanted the crowd, referring to the landmark IsraeliPalestinian agreements of the 1990s that gave Palestinians limited self-rule.
Sunday’s rally aimed at pressuring the government to “return to the Gaza Strip and establish communities right away”, said settler leader Daniella Weiss.
“The Arabs will not stay in Gaza,” she claimed, “not Hamas, not the supporters of Hamas, and those who do not support Hamas don’t want to stay anyway”.
Israel seized the Gaza Strip in 1967, during a war that also saw it capturing the West Bank and east Jerusalem.
Over 400,000 Israelis now live in settlements in the occupied West Bank, deemed illegal under international law, alongside about 3 million Palestinians.
Israel unilaterally withdrew its troops and settlers from Gaza in 2005.
The Hamas-ruled territory is home to about 2.4 million Palestinians, the vast majority of whom have been displaced by Israel’s blistering air, land and sea offensive since Oct 7.
The Israeli military campaign, according to the Gaza health ministry, has killed at least 26,422 people, most of them women and children.
The Oct 7 attack that triggered it resulted in the deaths of about 1,140 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
The Palestinians seek a future independent state in the West Bank, Gaza and Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem.
Earlier in January, Mr Netanyahu said he would “not compromise on full Israeli security control over all of the territory west of the Jordan [river] — and that is in opposition to a Palestinian state”.
He has, however, said Israeli resettlement of Gaza was “not a realistic target”.
Mr Netanyahu’s government, the most religious and ultranationalist in Israel’s 75-year history, has prioritised West Bank settlement expansion since it took office in late 2022.
A growing chorus of Mr Netanyahu’s coalition partners are calling for renewed Israeli settlement of Gaza, in defiance of US President Joe Biden’s administration.
The State Department in early January said: “Gaza is Palestinian land and will remain Palestinian land”.