Settlement advocates and right-wing politicians have prepared a plan to establish settlements in Gaza, despite condemnation in Israel and around the world to their expressed intentions in a conference in Jerusalem on Sunday.
Read more:
Having learned from their experiences to sway government policies, some of which were successful in the recent past, Samaria regional council head Yossi Dagan and settlement activist and head of the Nahala movement Daniella Weiss devised a detailed plan that they intend to advance simultaneously via different channels.
3 View gallery
Likud Minister Shlomo Karhi, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Yossi Dagan dance together at the "Return to Gaza" event on Sunday
(Photo: Ronen Zvulun / Reuters)
The political channel will join members of Knesset and ministers in a political lobby to advocate for the resettlement of the Strip. Weiss had already spent days meeting with lawmakers and ministers in the right-wing coalition to present the plan and claim that failing to establish settlements in Gaza would be dangerous to Israeli security.
Dagan who is considered to have considerable power in the ruling Likud Party had already enlisted lawmakers to scrap the 2005 law dismantling settlements in the northern West Bank and to advance further development of one of them, Homesh. His plans to deploy the same methods towards settlement building in Gaza, through legislation.
Dagan and others began an international campaign and the Sunday event in Jerusalem was extensively covered by international media outlets. He had already given interviews in American networks with the aim of enlisting Republican support after the groundwork for pro-settlement advocacy there had been laid during the Trump administration, with the help of then U.S. Ambassador David Friedman, himself a supporter of the settlements.
The plan also includes a campaign to enlist public support inside Israel. While Dagan is promoting settlements in the northern parts of the Gaza Strip, Weiss is advocating for settling the entire enclave. The idea is not for settlers from the West Bank to move there but to "bring" people from all over Israel and especially form the south.
Before the event in Jerusalem, smaller conferences were held in Ashdod and Sderot, including a flotilla sailing near the Gaza shores. Weiss also met with residents of Sderot, residing in Jerusalem hotels after they were evacuated in the wake of the October 7 massacre. The head of the Sderot Yeshiva was also conscripted to advance the plan.
Groups of settlers have already organized to settle in Gaza when called upon. They must be prepared to move within hours and arrive with personal and necessary gear. Any political or security event could be the moment for action. Recent history has shown such plans can be moved into action quickly, as the settlers have shown when they moved families into the disputed area in Eviatar on the West Bank in 2022. Hours after a terror attack killing Yehuda Guetta, families were already established on the location.
Some families have already divided the labor and are preparing the necessary equipment. Weiss intends to move them to the border area in the near future, so that they would be positioned to move when called upon.
The practice deployed in previous settlement initiatives has been first to enter an area for religious worship, with security provided by the IDF, then establish agricultural stations or farms before small groups take hold of the land and lay the groundwork for those who will follow.