Far-right Zionists rally to call for creating new Gaza settlements

By AFP

Hundreds of far-right Zionist demonstrators, including legislators and ministers, gathered Monday near the Israel-Gaza border to demand the establishment of Jewish settlements in the war-battered Palestinian territory, an AFP correspondent reported.

"If we want, we can resettle in Gaza," said National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, as the audience applauded. "The land of Israel is ours."

Many in the demonstration wore stickers reading "Gaza is ours for eternity".

In the wake of the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023 and Israel's devastating military retaliation, far-right politicians and settler groups have increasingly called for the creation of Israeli settlements inside Gaza.

Israel occupied the Gaza Strip in 1967 and maintained troops and settlements there until 2005.

It later withdrew but imposed a crippling blockade and, since the start of the current war, a near-total siege on the territory.

The possible return of Jewish settlers into Gaza where 2.4 million Palestinians live amid the destruction wrought by the war has been publicly rejected by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

But more hardline members of his coalition government openly discuss a potential settlement scheme in Gaza.

Far-right parties in Israel's governing coalition have pressed for an acceleration of settlement expansion since taking power in late 2022.

Palestinians have long argued that settlements represent the biggest threat to a two-state solution envisaging Israeli and Palestinian states existing side by side.

The war in Gaza was triggered by Hamas's attack on southern Israel that resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people on the Israeli side, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures and including hostages who died or were killed in captivity.

At least 42,603 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli military assault on the Gaza Strip, the majority women and children, according to data from the Hamas-run territory's health ministry. The UN acknowledges these figures to be reliable.