On Monday, Israeli Knesset members and senior government ministers attended a conference on re-establishing Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip that was held in southern Israel near the Gaza border.
The conference, titled “Preparing to Resettle Gaza,” was organized by the Israeli settler organization Nachala and members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party.
At least ten out of the 32 Likud party members in the Israeli Knesset were set to attend the conference, including May Golan, who is in Netanyahu’s government as the minister for Social Equality and the Advancement of the Status of Women.
In a speech at the rally, which drew hundreds of attendees, vowed Palestinians in Gaza would face another “Nakba,” referring to the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian Arabs when the modern state of Israel was formed in 1948.
“We will hit them where it hurts – their land,” Golan said, according to Haaretz. “Anyone who uses their plot of land to plan another Holocaust will receive from us, with God’s help, another Nakba that they will tell their children and their grandchildren about for the next 50 years.”
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, leader of the Jewish Power party, also delivered a speech at the conference, and he received a very warm welcome. Haaretz reported that attendees broke out in chants of “Look over here, it’s our next Prime Minister” and “Death penalty for terrorists,” referring to Ben Gvir’s calls to execute Palestinian prisoners to make room in Israeli prisons.
In his speech, Ben Gvir said, “We will encourage the voluntary transfer of all Gazan citizens. We will offer them the opportunity to move to other countries because that land belongs to us.”
Ben Gvir and other proponents of conquering Gaza have framed their idea as “voluntary” for the Palestinians, but the Israeli military campaign has made most of Gaza uninhabitable. Palestinians in northern Gaza are currently facing Israeli evacuation orders to move to the south under the threat of death by military action or starvation.
Other Israeli ministers who attended the conference include Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Yitzhak Wasserlauf, the minister for the development of the Negev and Galilee.
Daniella Weiss, a leader of Nachala, vowed that Jewish settlements would begin popping up in Gaza within a year. “In less than a year, each one of you can call me and ask me if I succeeded in fulfilling my dream,” she told reporters at the conference. “Actually, you don’t even have to call me. You will witness how Jews go to Gaza and Arabs disappear from Gaza.”
Weiss also made it clear that her ambitions for Israeli expansion did not stop in Gaza or the West Bank. “The real borders of greater Israel are between the Euphrates River and the Nile.”
Haaretz recently reported that the Israeli government is not seeking to revive ceasefire talks with Hamas and is now pushing for the gradual annexation of large portions of the Gaza Strip.
