Hundreds of Israeli settlers marched to the Gaza border on Wednesday, calling for Jewish settlement in the Palestinian territory, a demonstration that comes amid reports that the Netanyahu government is considering annexation.
According to AFP, demonstrators marching toward the border chanted “Gaza, ours forever” and declared that the “way to defeat Hamas is to take back our land.” Daniella Weiss, leader of the radical settler Nachala movement, said she had families ready to move in.
“As a movement, 1,000 families — you see them today marching — we are ready to move now, as things stand, and to live in tents,” Weiss said. “We are ready with our children to move into the Gaza area right away, because we believe this is the way to bring quiet, peace, to put an end to Hamas.”
Weiss was interviewed in a recently released documentary by Louis Theroux titled “The Settlers,” where she bragged about her work over the years in establishing and expanding illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Weiss has been explicit that her hopes for Gaza entail the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population.
“In less than a year, each one of you can call me and ask me if I succeeded in fulfilling my dream,” Weiss said at a “resettle Gaza” conference in October 2024. “Actually, you don’t even have to call me. You will witness how Jews go to Gaza and Arabs disappear from Gaza.”
Weiss’s faction of settlers has significant support within the Israeli government. Twenty-two Israeli ministers and Knesset members have sent a letter to the Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz urging him to approve a tour in northern Gaza for Nachala and other settler groups to “examine settlement options in the area.”
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a West Bank settler and outspoken proponent of taking over Gaza, spoke at an event on Tuesday marking 20 years since Israeli settlers withdrew from Gaza as part of a policy known as the disengagement. “Gaza is an integral part of Israel. How to move on to a tangible plan (for resettlement)? We need to need think about it, and above all we must succeed,” Smotrich said.
Smotrich has been threatening to quit the government after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu allowed slightly more humanitarian aid into Gaza amid international outrage over the starvation deaths in Gaza due to the Israeli siege. To appease Smotrich, Netanyahu is now considering annexing parts of Gaza, and, according to the latest reports in Israeli media, Israel has threatened Hamas that if it doesn’t accept Israel’s latest terms for a ceasefire deal, annexation will begin.
During a meeting at the Israeli Knesset last week, Smotrich said that he was confident Israel will take over Gaza. “This is doable and realistic. I’m very optimistic. Conquering Gaza and settling it as an integral part of the State of Israel,” he said.
