From the Liveblog of
Monday, June 17, 2024
Far-right MKs announce formation of Knesset caucus to advocate for resettlement of Gaza
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
Building on National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s calls to establish Jewish communities in Gaza following the war with Hamas, two far-right lawmakers announce the establishment of a “Knesset Caucus for the Renewal of Settlement in the Gaza Strip.”
The move is announced in a joint release by MK Limor Son Har-Melech, of Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit party, and by Religious Zionism MK Zvi Sukkot.
They say that the lobby, whose launch is slated for Tuesday in the Knesset, is necessary because in the wake of the 2005 Disengagement from Gaza and the northern West Bank “and the terrorism that followed… settlement in the Gaza Strip [is] a necessary step to protect Israel’s security and ensure its future.”
“Only by a dense presence of Jewish settlements throughout Gaza will it be possible to prevent the continuation of terrorist threats and deter the enemy,” they state.
“Only settlement will bring security,” says Sukkot, a former prominent radical settler activist who was arrested multiple times and was once suspected of involvement in the arson of a mosque in the northern West Bank. “Only Jewish children playing in the Strip will make the Nova terrorists realize that they have lost.”
“When they realize that they are losing control of Gaza and losing the land of Gaza, they will be ready to release hostages without setting conditions that pose a threat to the existence of the State of Israel,” he adds.
Son Har Melech, who was a resident of the northern West Bank settlement of Homesh before it was evacuated during the Disengagement, argues that “if we do not plant deep Jewish roots in the land of Gaza, the enemy will continue to expand the range of his attacks and continue to threaten us.”
“Without settlement, not only the residents of the Gaza border area, but also the residents of the north and other parts of the country will never feel safe,” she says.
While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has come out against the idea of Israel governing Palestinians in Gaza after the war, 11 ministers and 15 coalition lawmakers attended a mass conference in January advocating the rebuilding of Jewish Israeli settlements in the heart of the Gaza Strip.
More than half of Israelis oppose annexing the Gaza Strip and reestablishing settlements uprooted during Israel’s 2005 Disengagement, according to a poll from the Hebrew University published last December.
