Thousands of Israelis, including ministers, demand settlements in Gaza

It is a gathering that will please neither Washington nor countries, including France, which have been campaigning for a two-state solution. Several thousand Israelis, including ministers, in favor of restoring settlements in the Gaza Strip gathered in Jerusalem on Sunday evening, urging the Prime Minister to look into the project.

Members of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party and other far-right ministers took part, as fighting between the Israeli army and Hamas in Gaza intensified.

A song against the Oslo Accords

“The time has come to return to Gush Katif and encourage voluntary migration,” said National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gavir, referring to the group of Israeli settlements once established in Gaza. “Isolation brings war and if we no longer want October 7, we must return home, control the region and (…) encourage the “voluntary” departure of Gazans, he added.

Eleven other ministers were present at the meeting, which took place at a packed Jerusalem conference center, according to organizers. Speakers called for the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza, and decided that the resettlement of settlements was the only way to ensure Israel’s security. Others sang “The Oslo Accords are dead, the people of Israel live”, in reference to the agreement leading to the peaceful coexistence of the two peoples, ratified in 1993 by PLO leader Yasser Arafat and Prime Minister Yitzhak. Rabin, in the White House, opposite Bill Clinton.

The gathering shows that an extremist fringe, long a minority in Israel, is currently gaining ground at the risk of deepening differences between Israel and the United States.

position against American allies

Israel has occupied the Gaza Strip as well as the West Bank and East Jerusalem since the 1967 war. About 400,000 Israelis live today in the West Bank along with three million Palestinians in settlements considered illegal by much of the international community. On the other hand, Israel withdrew its citizens from 21 settlements established in the Gaza Strip in 2005. The region is home to 2.4 million Palestinians, most of whom have been displaced since fighting began in October.

The Israeli prime minister has so far never backed the plan to revive settlements in Gaza, declaring that it was “not a realistic goal”. He never organized a meeting of his government dedicated to the post-war period. Netanyahu’s government is the most religious and ultranationalist in the country’s history. Since coming to power in late 2022, he has made expanding settlements in the occupied West Bank a priority. But his policy is openly at odds with the approach of the United States, the Jewish state’s staunch ally.

20 minutes with AFP