A group of Israelis hoping to live in Gaza at the end of the war has already published maps that imagine Jewish-majority towns scattered across the region. Far-right Israeli lawmakers have drawn up plans to legalize such settlements. And Israel’s national security minister called on the Arab residents to leave Gaza so that Jews could inhabit the coastal strip.
After four months of war and a death toll that Gaza officials say exceeds 27,000, international pressure is mounting on Israel to withdraw from Gaza. But a small group of Israelis are pushing for the opposite: They want Israel to retain control of the territory, from which Hamas launched the deadliest attack in Israeli history, and to restore the Jewish settlements that were broken up by Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza. in 2005.
“The moment the war is over, we will build our homes there,” said Yair Cohen, 23, a reservist who said his family was expelled from Gaza in 2005. “The question is not whether we will return when the fighting is over, but if there is a Gaza.”
For the Palestinians, the settler plans would likely result in mass displacement and an end to their dream of a Palestinian state—a dream that much of the world would like to see come true. “Israel wants the Palestinian people to choose between destruction and displacement,” Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations Riyad Mansour told the body last month.
But with resettlement looking unlikely to outsiders, the idea is being pushed at a time when Israel has yet to decide how post-war Gaza should be governed.
Although the United States and other powers are pushing for Gaza to become part of a Palestinian state, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has other priorities, including staying in power and appeasing his far-right coalition partners. In the absence of a government plan for after the war, settlement talks are filling the void and worrying Israel’s allies.
The Gaza settlement movement has been driven by nationalist zeal, religious fervor and security concerns since October 7, when Hamas-led militants stormed the Israeli border from Gaza, killing about 1,200 people and taking another 240 hostage, according to Israeli officials.
The ensuing war—and the absence of a clear and alternative plan for Gaza’s future—provides what settlers see as an opportunity. For nearly two decades, settlers and their supporters viewed the 2005 withdrawal as a catastrophic setback.
Israel’s prime minister and defense minister ruled out resettlement and the idea lacks support from most of the Israeli public. A Hebrew University poll in December found that 56 percent of Israelis oppose resettlement in Gaza. But a vocal minority is trying to build momentum behind its plan, which is backed by a third of lawmakers in Israel’s far-right governing coalition.
The settler dream of returning Israelis to Gaza would mean replacing the Palestinians currently living there, and while the settler movement is divided on how to do that, some extremist settlers support expulsion.
At a recent settler conference in Jerusalem, attended by 3,500 people, including some far-right ministers, one group held signs reading: “Only transfer will bring peace.”
While speaking at the meeting, Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s far-right national security minister, saw the posters and told the group: “You’re right.” Then, of the Palestinians living in Gaza, he added: “They should get out of here.”
Some bystanders shouted, “Eviction only!”
The settler movement has a long history and powerful supporters, including Mr. Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s finance minister. Both men wield enormous influence because their small parties are critical to keeping Mr. Netanyahu’s ruling coalition in power.
The Israeli government began building settlements after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, when Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan and Gaza from Egypt.
Most countries consider the settlements illegal and see them as an obstacle to the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state. Although Israel withdrew from Gaza, more than 200 settlements housing about half a million Israelis remain in the occupied West Bank.
Beyond far-right politicians, the movement also includes Israelis who lived in pre-2005 Gaza settlements, as well as religious hardline settlers in the West Bank. A keynote speaker at rallies, Uzi Sharbav, was convicted of involvement in the murder of three Palestinians in the 1980s. Although sentenced to decades in prison, he was pardoned in 1990.
Some settlers see life in Gaza through a religious lens, seeking to inhabit the land of their ancestors in fulfillment of what they believe was a promise made by God in biblical times. Others say the settlements are essential to Israel’s security, arguing that the presence of civilians among the Palestinians makes it harder for militants to mount attacks.
Avishai Bar-Yehuda, 67, was forced to flee the strip with his family nearly 20 years ago. Now dying of cancer, his last wish is to rest in the sands of Gaza.
“We are praying to come back,” he told the gathering of settlers.
The push to resettle Gaza is happening both in political channels, where far-right politicians try to give it legal support, and at the grassroots.
In a provocation last month, settlement supporters briefly sent their children to break through military lines to play inside the buffer zone near the Gaza border.
In November, 11 members of the Israeli parliament, mainly from Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud party, proposed repealing a law barring Israeli citizens from entering Gaza.
Likud has not advanced those proposals, and Mr. Netanyahu called resettlement an “unrealistic goal.” The United States recently imposed economic sanctions on several West Bank settlers amid a rise in settler attacks against Palestinians there, underscoring outsider opposition to settler plans.
But the settler movement has a history of ignoring both outside criticism and official policy, often building unauthorized settlements that later win government approval.
Already, settler leaders are drawing up plans to infiltrate Gaza, hoping to build villages without permission that could eventually be recognized.
In early February, more than 100 activists entered a closed military zone near the border, attempting to breach into Gaza. The army turned them away.
One of the activists, Amos Azaria, explained how supporters would start with small camps.
“We’re going to keep trying to get in,” he said in an interview shortly after the failed invasion. “If we had been successful today, we would probably have gone away quickly. But we will take more substantial steps. We will arrive with tents and try to get settled. Many families are ready to do whatever it takes.”
Some believe that Israeli soldiers already in Gaza could help the settlers. And dozens of soldiers have posted videos from Gaza expressing support for the resettlement.
“It’s our country, all of it — Gaza too,” Capt. Avihai Friedman, a military rabbi, was recorded telling a group of soldiers in Gaza recently. “The whole promised land.”
Settler leaders tried to shake off the idea that they were driven only by religious beliefs. They argue that such communities make Israel safer. Had the settlers been allowed to remain in Gaza, they say, it would have been more difficult for Hamas and other militants to stage the October 7 attack.
“Only settlements justify a long-term military presence, which in turn ensures security,” said Brig. General Amir Avivi, former deputy commander of the Gaza Division and current chairman of the Israel Defense and Security Forum, a right-wing institute.
Many Israelis disagree. “The settlements there were a security risk,” said Omer Zanany, a security expert at a foreign policy think tank, the Mitvim Institute and the Berl Katznelson Foundation. “Israeli military forces had to escort children to kindergartens and schools.”
Husam Zomlot, the Palestinian ambassador to Britain, compared the resettlement to the mass displacement of Palestinians who surrounded The founding of Israel in 1948. “The Biden administration could end all of this tomorrow if it stopped shielding, arming and financing not only Israel but its illegal expansion,” he said.
The opposition extends to some settler leaders. Oded Revivi, the mayor of Efrat, he said those who support resettlement “have no control over reality,” adding, “There is no justification for deporting Palestinians.”
Although Mr. Netanyahu’s government does not officially support resettlement, critics fear the idea will gain momentum because Israel’s leaders have not proposed a real alternative vision.
“What scares me is that the settler movement is playing in an empty stadium,” Mr Zanany said. “No one else is promoting a vision for after the war.”
Patrick Kingsley contributed to the report.
