As bombs rain down on the besieged Gaza Strip, turning buildings to rubble and sending plumes of smoke into the sky, most onlookers see an apocalyptic scene of despair and destruction. But for some rightwing Israelis, the ravaged landscape represents a promising new frontier – a chance to resettle the land they were forced to leave nearly two decades ago.
The idea of Israeli settlers returning to Gaza, once dismissed as a fringe fantasy, is steadily gaining traction thanks to Israel’s ongoing military offensive and the enthusiastic support of powerful allies in the government, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partners.
“Preparing to Resettle Gaza”: The Growing Movement
Last week, as airstrikes pounded Gaza, hundreds gathered near the Israel-Gaza border for a “Preparing to Resettle Gaza” conference organized by the pro-settlement group Nachala. Government ministers and members of parliament mingled with the festive crowd, waving Israeli flags and poring over maps of the battered enclave.
“We plan to take what we have acquired in the years of settling Judea and Samaria and to do the same thing here in Gaza,” Nachala chairwoman Daniella Weiss declared to cheers, using the Biblical names for the Israeli-occupied West Bank. “In less than a year… Jews will go to Gaza and Arabs will disappear from Gaza.”
This was no fringe gathering, but one of several high-profile events Nachala has held this year promoting the once-taboo idea of re-establishing Israeli settlements in Gaza – colonies that were dismantled in 2005 when Israel unilaterally withdrew from the strip. The Sukkot conference even received the blessing of the Israeli military to take place in an active war zone.
From Pipe Dream to Government Policy?
Though resettling Gaza is not yet official government policy, the idea is steadily seeping into the mainstream, nurtured by the most right-wing coalition in Israeli history. According to a close source, senior defense officials are openly discussing plans to annex large swaths of Gaza, paving the way for settlers to return.
I say this not as a prophecy, but as a warning: the idea of resettling Gaza must be taken very seriously.
– Amira Hass, Israeli Journalist
Many credit the settlers’ rising influence to their savvy organizing and staunch political allies. Daniella Weiss, the Nachala leader who claims to have established hundreds of settlements in the West Bank, now boasts of having over 700 settler families poised to move into Gaza.
Accusations of Forcible Transfer in Northern Gaza
Human rights groups accuse Israel of deliberately depopulating northern Gaza through a ferocious years-long bombing campaign to facilitate settler designs, which could constitute the war crime of forcible transfer. The Israeli military denies this, but their ongoing Gaza offensive has been embraced by resettlement advocates.
As the Israel-Gaza war grinds on with no end in sight, the settlers’ once-fringe vision of triumphantly resettling Gaza no longer seems like a mere pipe dream, but a disquieting possibility that could further inflame one of the world’s most intractable conflicts. Will Gaza’s traumatized population face expulsion to make way for the settlers’ return? The once-unthinkable is now an open question.
