From the Liveblog of
Wednesday, October 16, 2024
10 Likud MKs to participate in conference next week near Sderot calling to ‘resettle Gaza’
Jeremy Sharon is The Times of Israel’s legal affairs and settlements reporter
Ten of the 32 MKs from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, including a cabinet minister, announce they will be participating in a conference tagged “Preparing to Resettle Gaza” scheduled for this Monday in the Gaza border region close to Sderot.
“A year after the pogroms we will stand together, Likud members, regional [Likud] branch chairs, MKs and ministers, and call out together ‘Gaza is ours. Forever,'” a poster advertising the event announces.
“Victory is settlements — it is doable” adds a message on a Gaza settlement WhatsApp channel announcing the participation of almost a third of the Likud faction Knesset members.
The Likud legislators participating include Social Equality Minister MK May Golan, along with MKs Avichay Buaron, Sasson Guetta, Tally Gotliv, Eli Dallal, Nissim Vaturi, Hanoch Milwidsky, Ariel Kallner, Kati Shitrit and Osher Shkalim.
The event — in which relatives of some of the Gaza hostages will participate along with bereaved families and families of active duty soldiers — is being organized by the Nachala Settlement Movement organization, which advocates for Jewish settlement in the West Bank where it has helped establish illegal settlement outposts.
At a previous conference held by Nachala in Jerusalem calling for the re-establishment of Jewish settlements in Gaza, numerous cabinet ministers and MKs, including members of the Likud, called for constructing settlements in Gaza and “encouraging voluntary emigration” of Palestinians out of the territory.
Other organizers of the event next week include several resettle Gaza activist groups, the Otzma Yehudit ultranationalist political party, which is headed by National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, and the youth chapter of the ultranationalist Religious Zionism party.
Transportation to the event is being provided by the organizers, with pickup points in Jerusalem, Haifa, Tel Aviv, Tapuah Junction in the northern West Bank — a region where there are numerous ideologically hardline settlements — and Kiryat Arba in the southern West Bank, another ideologically radical settlement and the home of Ben Gvir.
