2025/07: GlobalSecurity: Gaza Resettlement Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel's extremist National Security Minister, told Army Radio 02 December 2024 that PM Netanyahu is starting to show "openness" to the idea of soft expulsion (in Israeli parlance, "encouraged emigration") from Gaza.

Alles deutet darauf hin, dass die israelische Regierung anstrebt, alle Palestinenser aus dem Gaza-Streifen zu vertreiben oder zu töten.

Wenn keiner mehr vor Ort ist, kann das Gebiet von Israelies übernommen werden. Eine Volksbefragung würde dann auch das gewünschte Ergebnis liefern.

• GlobalSecurity: Gaza Resettlement

Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s extremist National Security Minister, told Army Radio 02 December 2024 that PM Netanyahu is starting to show „openness“ to the idea of soft expulsion (in Israeli parlance, „encouraged emigration“) from Gaza. Ben-Gvir told Israeli Army Radio that occupying Gaza is not enough, but rather the residents of the Strip must be forced to emigrate voluntarily, noting that the conditions are now suitable for that. „The only times we defeated our enemies was when we took lands from them, so settlement in Gaza should be encouraged,“ he added.

He explained that he is working hard to make progress on the path of displacing the people from Gaza, noting that he has begun to notice Netanyahu’s openness to the idea. Ben Gvir warned that he would resign if a ceasefire agreement was reached and what he called an irresponsible deal was concluded. He pointed out that he opposes Hamas‘ demands to stop the war, release thousands of Palestinian prisoners, and release the body of the movement’s leader (martyr) Yahya Sinwar.

International newspapers focused on the statements of former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon , in which he accused Israel of committing war crimes and ethnic cleansing in the Gaza Strip , and the escalation of Israeli calls to annex the West Bank , in addition to the successive field developments in Syria. The New York Times said that Yaalon’s statements were unprecedented from a member of the security establishment during a time of war. The newspaper quoted a Palestinian writer as saying that Ya’alon’s statements are important „because they reinforce the Palestinian narrative, and come from a general who served at the top of the Israeli military system.“

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz saw that the view of the two extremist ministers, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, and other ministers of Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government, regarding the war in Gaza proves the validity of Ya’alon’s statements regarding ethnic cleansing. The newspaper explained that Smotrich and Ben-Gvir want to empty the Gaza Strip, or at least parts of it, of Palestinians, and then seize the land to build settlements, noting that they strongly oppose any reasonable proposal to complete a swap deal, and are pushing to prolong the war at any cost.

The Israeli Jerusalem Post said in its editorial that the return of the northern residents is more important to Israel than what it described as any retaliatory settlement in Gaza. The editorial called for giving priority to rebuilding the villages and towns of the north, and for returning their residents to their homes, and stressed that rebuilding the north economically and humanely is “strategically and security-wise better for Israel.”

Since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war on October 7, 2023, the movement to re-settle Gaza has moved from the extreme fringes within Israeli society to the political discourse among Netanyahu’s partners in the right-wing coalition. Netanyahu has publicly rejected the idea of Jewish settlements in Gaza. Jewish settlements were forcibly evacuated from Gaza in 2005, sparking resentment toward the state among many settlers who now seek to return. Israel demolished the settlements there that were home to about eight thousand Israelis.

Hundreds of right-wing and ultra-nationalist Israelis took part in a conference on October 22, 2024 on re-establishing settlements in the Gaza Strip. The conference was held near the border with Gaza and attracted a number of prominent parliamentarians, including from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party

„If we want, we can settle again in Gaza,“ Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir told a crowd gathered on the border between Israel and the Strip to demand the rebuilding of Jewish settlements in the Palestinian enclave destroyed by the war. Ben-Gvir was one of the speakers at the rally, which was organized under the slogan „Preparing the Return“ to Gaza, at the invitation of Likud lawmakers and pro-settlement parties and organizations. In the background, explosions and gunfire could be heard amid the war between the Israeli army and Hamas that has been going on for more than a year.

Ben-Gvir’s speech to a crowd of hundreds of activists, most of them religious Jews, was met with warm applause. „The land of Israel belongs to all of us,“ he added, addressing a crowd where many participants held up posters reading „Gaza is ours forever.“ Dozens of huts were built during the Sukkot holiday, in a large field hundreds of meters from the border with Gaza. The rally was attended by prominent extremist figures, families with children who came to enjoy a sunny day and attend discussion panels about the future of Jewish settlement in the Palestinian enclave.

Inbal Fitoussi, who previously lived in a settlement in Gaza and whose son Ishai was killed in battles in the Strip, said, „We need to be in the Gaza Strip to protect Israel.“ „Returning“ to Gaza means „making Hamas pay a heavy ideological price for the war it waged against us,“ Tzvi Sukkot, a member of the Religious Zionist Party, said. „They have to understand that in this war, they will also lose the Gaza Strip,“ he added.

The Israeli right-wing parties and the settlement movements are competing with each other to move forward with plans and projects to re-settle the Gaza Strip . By Novembmer 2024, 6 engineering plans had been completed to build 6 settlement outposts in the northern Gaza Strip, while the „Jewish Power“ party took the initiative to submit a bill to cancel the 2005 „disengagement“ plan and rebuild the settlements that were evacuated from „Gush Katif“ in the southern Gaza Strip. Under the title „Lighting Gaza“, the settlement associations are preparing to revive what they called „the chain of settlement roots in the Strip“, at the border fence with Gaza, during the holiday of lights „Hanukkah“, which falls in the last week of December.

The plans for re-settlement in the Gaza Strip are in harmony with the „Generals‘ Plan“ prepared by former Israeli army general Giora Eiland, which he presented to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu . The occupation army has begun implementing it through a military operation that has been ongoing for the ninth consecutive week, and aims to commit massacres to forcibly displace the residents of the northern Gaza Strip, by imposing a complete siege on the area and preventing the entry of humanitarian aid into it.

Israeli Housing Minister Yitzhak Goldknopf led settler leaders on a field tour at the „Netzarim“ axis in the middle of the Strip, accompanied by the head of the „Nehala“ settlement movement, Daniella Weiss, where they inspected the place and reviewed a map and an engineering plan for settlement in the Strip.

The visit of the Israeli minister and settler leaders to the „Netzarim“ axis, which is occupied by the Israeli army, is added to a series of steps, procedures and statements by government ministers that push towards building settlements and settlement outposts in the north and south of the Strip, and rebuilding the „Gush Katif“ bloc, which included 21 settlements in the south of the Strip and was inhabited by about 9,000 settlers until the implementation of the „disengagement“ plan began in August 2005.

The tour of the settlement godmother Weiss, accompanied by the Israeli Minister of Housing, to the northern Gaza Strip was the first official one, but it was preceded by several secret visits and field tours under the cover of darkness, and it was carried out in the company of soldiers and officers from the Israeli army affiliated with the “Jewish Power” and “Religious Zionism” parties, according to what the official Israeli Channel “Kan 11” revealed.

Weiss and her settlement team of engineers and planners, who are these days strongly promoting the move towards Jewish resettlement in the Gaza Strip, have already prepared an engineering plan for 6 settlement outposts that include hundreds of families, and during the war they conducted patrols and field tours on the Gaza border and toured with soldiers in the northern part of the Strip.

The official Israeli channel quoted Weiss as saying that „one of the goals of the field tour is to examine the places where the settlers will be able to enter and place mobile homes and caravans in them,“ noting that there are 40 caravans equipped with all the equipment and supplies in addition to electricity generators, as they are waiting for the right moment to bring them in and set them up in the northern Gaza Strip.

Initially, according to the plan presented by the movement’s head, „Jewish families will enter the northern Gaza Strip and establish settlement outposts, which will be unofficially linked to the Israeli army’s military bases and infrastructure in the Strip, and then they will be transformed into official and recognized settlement blocs.“

According to Weiss, convoys of mobile homes and caravans were brought to the “ Gaza Envelope ” area specifically for the families who would move to the Gaza Strip the moment the order was issued, and millions of dollars in donations were collected from Jewish communities around the world specifically for the groups of settlers who would enter the Strip. Despite her refusal to specify a time for the establishment of settlements, the settlement godmother expressed her belief that “within a few months there will be changes on the ground, and the first settlement outposts will be established in the Strip.”

In harmony with the settlement engineering plans prepared by the Nehala movement, the parties participating in the government coalition are calling for settlement in the Strip, and some of them are calling for occupying it and imposing military rule on it. This is the position expressed by the head of the Religious Zionism Party and Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich , during a conference held by the Settlements Council, where he called for occupying the Gaza Strip, displacing half of its population, and taking control of it militarily.

In an effort to gain a foothold in rebuilding the Gush Katif settlement bloc, in preparation for imposing occupation sovereignty over the Gaza Strip, Smotrich is pressuring Netanyahu to accept the idea of transferring the distribution of humanitarian aid in Gaza to the Israeli army, a move that would lead to the imposition of military rule in the Strip, which would cost Israel 20 billion shekels ($5.5 billion) annually, according to the newspaper „De Marker“.

The idea of resettling the Strip, which comes under the name “Gaza is ours forever,” is gaining momentum on the ground, as hundreds of settlers recently launched the “Imminent Return to Gaza” project by building tents in the area near the border fence with Gaza, despite it being a military zone, with the participation of Knesset members and ministers.

At the official political level, the idea of settlement in the Strip was translated, at the end of October 2024, through the establishment of a new parliamentary lobby in the Knesset under the name “Renewing Jewish Settlement in the Gaza Strip,” with the participation of ministers and Knesset members from various parties, security and legal personnel, and others.

The head of the settlement lobby, MK Limor Son Har-Melech of the Jewish Power party, told Israel’s Channel 14 that „the lobby’s goal is to return the Jewish settlement project to the Gaza Strip,“ and claimed that „real victory in the war can only be achieved through Jewish settlement throughout the Land of Israel, including the Gaza Strip.“

The return to settlement in the Gaza Strip is one of the most prominent issues currently occupying Israeli public opinion, as recent opinion polls have shown a clear division on this issue between opponents and supporters, amid fears of the repercussions of this step on the security and political situation in the region, especially in light of repeated warnings from security experts.

A poll published by Israeli Channel 13 political program presenter Danny Kushmaro revealed that 51% of Israelis oppose returning to settlement in the Gaza Strip. In contrast, the poll showed that 57% of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s voters support settlement in the Strip.

On 04 February 2025, during a joint news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and in a striking change from established US policy by numerous past US administrations, U.S. President Trump announced a proposal that Gaza „should not go through a process of rebuilding and occupation by the same people that have really stood there and fought for it and lived there and died there and lived a miserable existence there. Instead, we should go to other countries of interest with humanitarian hearts, and there are many of them that want to do this and build various domains that will ultimately be occupied by the million Palestinians living in Gaza, ending the death and destruction and frankly bad luck.“

In addition, he proposed to have the United States „take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it too. We’ll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site, level the site, and get rid of the destroyed buildings, level it out, create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area. (…) Everybody I’ve spoken to loves the idea of the United States owning that piece of land, developing and creating thousands of jobs with something that will be magnificent in a really magnificent area that nobody would know. Nobody can look because all they see is death and destruction and rubble and demolished buildings falling all over.“

Trump added: „I envision a world – people living there, the world’s people. I think you’ll make that into an international, unbelievable place. I think the potential in the Gaza Strip is unbelievable. And I think the entire world, representatives from all over the world will be there (…) Palestinians also. Palestinians will live there, many people will live there. But they’ve tried the other and they’ve tried it for decades and decades and decades. It’s not going to work. (…) We have an opportunity to do something that could be phenomenal. And I don’t want to be cute. I don’t want to be a wise guy. But the Riviera of the Middle East, this could be something that could be so – this could be so magnificent.“