Israeli settlement push in Gaza gains traction after war

Jewish settlement in Gaza, dismantled two decades ago, has returned to Israeli politics with unusual force. What was once the language of the far right has gained visible support from cabinet ministers, coalition lawmakers and a settler movement now openly mapping new communities inside the Gaza Strip.

Israel evacuated all 21 settlements and withdrew its military from Gaza in 2005, ending a 38-year occupation and forcing about 8,000 settlers to leave. After Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023 attack and the war that followed, the debate came roaring back. In January 2024, a major conference in Jerusalem organized by the settler movement Nachala drew thousands of activists, along with 11 government ministers and 15 coalition lawmakers, who pledged to rebuild Jewish settlements in Gaza. At the gathering, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir told the crowd to “return home to Gush Katif,” the former Gaza settlement bloc, while Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said, “Without settlements there is no security.” A banner at the event read, “Only a transfer [of Palestinians from Gaza] will bring peace.”

Ben Gvir pressed the same message again in October 2024 at another ultranationalist gathering near the Gaza border, urging new Jewish settlements in Gaza and saying Gazans should be “encouraged” to emigrate. He argued that Israel needed control of the land to prevent another Oct. 7. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel does not intend to keep a permanent presence in Gaza after the war, but he has also said Israel wants security control there when the fighting ends, leaving the future of the territory unresolved.

The push has triggered opposition from the Palestinian Authority, Hamas and Israeli opposition figures, who have described the rhetoric as incitement to forced displacement. Major American Jewish organizations, including the Jewish Federations of North America, the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League, have said reestablishing Israeli settlements in Gaza would be a non-starter, and the Reform and Conservative movements have also opposed it. A poll by the Israel Democracy Institute found that 42% of Israeli Jews supported settlement in Gaza, including nearly 60% of right-wing Israeli Jews, underscoring how far the idea has penetrated mainstream debate.

The international legal backdrop has only sharpened the stakes. The International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion on July 19, 2024, on the legal consequences of Israel’s policies and practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem. UN bodies later said the occupation is illegal under international law. Against that backdrop, Nachala and its founder, Daniella Weiss, have continued promoting symbolic events and publishing maps of envisioned settlements inside Gaza, echoing a settler playbook that has used holiday seders as territorial claims since Hebron in 1968 and near what later became Kedumim in 1975.