Visiting the Gaza border on Thursday, the leader of the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party Yitzhak Goldknopf said that “Jewish settlement here is the answer.”
The Haredi housing and construction minister toured the area with settler leader Daniella Weiss. He was pictured looking at a map of prospective Jewish settlements in Gaza, along with Weiss, head of the Nachala settlement movement and one of the key figures leading the lobby to resettle northern Gaza.
“Jewish settlement here is the answer to the terrible [October 7] massacre and the answer to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, which instead of caring for the 101 hostages [held in Gaza], chose to issue arrest warrants against the prime minister and the [former] defense minister,” Goldknopf said.
Unusually for an ultra-Orthodox politician, Goldknopf has lately been an outspoken advocate for resettling Gaza, whose 21 Israeli settlements were dismantled in 2005 during the Gaza Disengagement.
In January he was one of 11 government ministers and 15 coalition lawmakers who attended a mass conference advocating for rebuilding Jewish settlements in the heart of the Gaza Strip.
In May, Goldknopf released a video message endorsing an Independence Day march demanding renewed Israeli settlement in the Strip.
סיירתי היום בישובי חבל עזה. ההתיישבות היהודית כאן היא התשובה לטבח הנורא והתשובה לביה״ד הבינלאומי בהאג שבמקום לדאוג ל-101 החטופים בחר להוציא צווים נגד ראש הממשלה ושר הבטחון. pic.twitter.com/01GGVwcS1d
— השר יצחק גולדקנופף (@DOVRUTGoldknopf) November 28, 2024
“It is very important to identify with this march,” he said at the time.
In August, Goldknopf called for a dramatic expansion of settlement activity while accompanying Settlements and National Projects Minister Orit Strock and Yossi Dagan, chairman of the Samaria Regional Council, on a visit to the recently legalized Evyatar outpost in the West Bank.
השר גולדקנופף על הדרישה להתישבות ישראלית בחבל עזה: כי לזרעך אתן את הארץ הזאת״
שר השיכון מצטרף לקריאה להגיע היום לצעדת עזה אשר תצא היום משדרות בשעה 12:00 pic.twitter.com/1vn0N8ugJB
— נחלה – תנועה להתיישבות (@T_Nachala) May 14, 2024
“For many years we were told that the settlements and the outposts are the obstacle to peace, and the settlers were slandered,” he declared then, arguing that Israel’s response to October 7 “must be to settle as much of the Land of Israel as possible.”
Last week, Weiss, who accompanied Goldknopf on his tour of the Gaza border, was reportedly smuggled into the Strip by Israeli soldiers. She was taken, along with a number of other settler leaders, to survey the site of the evacuated Netzarim settlement, in the IDF-controlled Netzarim corridor in central Gaza.
Weiss told Kan news that she hoped to employ the same method in Gaza that she’d used in the West Bank: having settlers latch onto an Israeli military presence and setting up civilian communes that the government would ultimately recognize.
Far-right activist Daniella Weiss, head of the Nachala organization, at an event calling for the resettlement of Gaza, October 21, 2024 (Jeremy Sharon/Times of Israel)
After the story was reported by Kan, the IDF said it was investigating the incident.
“Weiss’s entrance into the Gaza Strip is unknown and was not approved in the proper channels,” the IDF said. “If the incident took place, it is illegal and against protocol, and will be handled accordingly.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly denied that Israel intends to resettle the Gaza Strip, despite multiple ministers in his coalition as well as members of his Likud party being outspokenly in favor of the idea.
Earlier this week, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Israel should occupy Gaza and “encourage” half of the Strip’s 2.2 million Palestinians to emigrate within two years.
Far-right minister Itamar Ben Gvir attends a gathering by right-wing activists near the border with Gaza on October 21, 2024, calling to establish a new Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip (Photo by Menahem KAHANA / AFP)
“Occupying Gaza is not a dirty word,” Smotrich asserted, echoing calls from far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who has repeatedly called for “voluntary migration” of Palestinians from Gaza, to be replaced by Jewish settlers.
Last month, Smotrich attended an event at which speakers called for reestablishing settlements, and some even called for Palestinians to be pushed out of the enclave. On his way to the conference, Smotrich said the Strip was “part of the Land of Israel” and that “without settlements, there is no security.”
Likud members made similar comments, with Social Equality Minister May Golan declaring at the conference that “taking territory” from Arabs is what “hurts them most” and that settlements in Gaza would bolster Israel’s security.
