22 ministers and lawmakers demand settlement group be allowed to tour northern Gaza

Twenty-two cabinet ministers and coalition lawmakers have signed a letter urging Defense Minister Israel Katz to approve a tour of northern Gaza by settlement groups, to examine possible sites for future Israeli communities.

The letter, signed by Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, Culture Minister Miki Zohar and Social Equality Minister May Golan, among others, called on Katz to “approve a tour into the northern border area of the Gaza Strip as part of an initiative by the Nachala Movement’s settlement cadres to examine settlement options in the area.”

The Nachala organization is involved in the construction of illegal settlement outposts in the West Bank. Its leader, Daniella Weiss, has been sanctioned by Canada and the UK.

Wednesday saw a group of activists, including Weiss, march toward the border near Sderot. They gathered at a lookout point and demonstrated for a return to Gaza settlement.

In their letter, the politicians said: “The Gaza Strip is not just another geographical area — it is the living heart of the Land of Israel, an area with deep biblical, historical, and national roots. The return of the Jewish people to these places is not just a strategic step — but a return to Zion in the deepest and most practical sense.” They argued that Israel should resettle northern Gaza because it is now under full IDF control and “empty of Gaza residents.”

Noting that residents of nearby Israeli towns and communities close to the Gaza border have been allowed to return to their homes, the nationalist politicians argued that “in the absence of a security impediment to the move, preventing the tour from entering could be perceived as taking a political stance and silencing the right, which is calling on the government to act to resettle Gaza.”

“We would like to join the tour in question ourselves,” they added.

Among the other signatories to the letter are Likud MKs Dan Illouz and Afef Abed, the party’s only Druze lawmaker, as well as Otzma Yehudit’s Limor Son Har-Melech and Religious Zionism’s Ohad Tal.

In a post on X, Nachala said the letter indicates support from a third of the coalition for its mission.

“The demand is being made as part of the call to settle the northern sector [of Gaza] as an immediate first step toward reconquest, expulsion, and settlement of the entire Gaza Strip,” it said.

In a separate statement, cabinet minister Ze’ev Elkin (New Hope), who was not among the letter’s signatories, told Kan news on Wednesday that Israel could threaten to annex parts of Gaza to increase pressure on Hamas.

“The most painful thing for our enemy is losing land,” he said. “A clarification to Hamas that the moment they play games with us, they will lose land that they will never get back, would be a significant pressure tool.”

Two decades since Disengagement

The 2005 evacuation of the 21 Jewish settlements, and their 8,600 residents, from Gaza’s coastal Gush Katif enclave under the Disengagement plan was a deep trauma for the religious Zionist community, bent on completing the restoration of Jewish sovereignty over all of the Land of Israel.

Nachala has been pushing for resettling the Strip since the outbreak of the war against Hamas in October 2023, organizing a large conference on “Jewish settlement in Gaza” at Jerusalem’s International Convention Center last January, attended by 11 cabinet ministers and over a dozen coalition MKs.

The group has organized cadres of hundreds of volunteers willing to move to new settlements in Gaza should the government give the go-ahead.

According to Hebrew media reports, last November, IDF soldiers went over their superiors’ heads to help Weiss enter the Strip to survey sites for potential Jewish settlements.

Weiss toured the Israeli side of the Gaza border fence with colleagues on November 13. The group eventually traversed the border, through unclear means, going a short way into the Strip, Kan reported.

A push from the right

While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has previously ruled out annexation of the strip and the rebuilding of settlements, some reports indicate that he may be changing his tune under increasing pressure from hard-right coalition allies, who have been advocating for such a policy.

According to a report in the Hebrew-language Maariv daily, Israel may begin annexing parts of the Gaza Strip if Hamas again rejects efforts by mediators to broker a ceasefire and hostage release deal. The report added that Jerusalem will give the negotiations another chance.

The unsourced report said Netanyahu recently presented the annexation proposal in a meeting with a small group of ministers, who decided to establish a special entity for administering annexed areas.

A separate report in the Haaretz newspaper said Netanyahu presented the plan as part of efforts to keep Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich from pulling his far-right Religious Zionism party out of the government.

While fellow far-right party leader Ben Gvir has come out strongly against the recent increase in Israeli aid to the strip, Smotrich has remained publicly quiet on the issue, reportedly pressuring Netanyahu behind the scenes.

According to the Haaretz report, Israel would annex areas in the “buffer zone” along the Gaza border first, followed by areas in the north of the Strip near the Israeli cities of Sderot and Ashkelon, and gradually continue until most or all of the territory is annexed.

Smotrich reportedly told Netanyahu that if the plan goes forward, his party will “remain in the government for the time being,” and that the premier will be “tested by his actions.”

The report said that the plan had been given a green light by Trump.

Smotrich acknowledged at a conference on Tuesday that he has been ridiculed in the past two days for staying in the government even as it reverses course and sends increased quantities of aid into Gaza. “If I’m still in the government,” he said, “then apparently I have reason to believe that good things are going to happen, that justify the shaming and the mockery [to which I’m being subjected]. Ultimately, time will tell whether I’m right or not.”

Calling the Gaza Strip “an inseparable part of the Land of Israel,” Smotrich said that while returning to the settlements Israel left in 2005 had been “wishful thinking” for a long time, it was now a “realistic” option.

Addressing the conference at the Gush Katif Heritage Center, marking two decades since Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, the far-right minister said he does “not want to go back to [the] Gush Katif [settlement bloc] — it’s too small, it needs to be much bigger, much more expansive.”

A spokesman for Katz did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

Reuters and Jeremy Sharon contributed to this report.