Israeli soldiers in Gaza went over their superiors’ heads earlier last week to help a settler leader enter the Strip to survey sites for potential Jewish settlements, Hebrew media reported, as the army probed the death in combat of 71-year-old amateur archaeologist who was apparently allowed into southern Lebanon without official authorization.
According to a report Thursday by the Kan public broadcaster, Daniella Weiss, who is leading efforts to resettle northern Gaza, toured the Israeli side of the Gaza border fence with her colleagues on November 13. The group eventually traversed the border, through unclear means, going a short way into the Strip.
Near central Gaza’s Netzarim Corridor, Weiss was said to have contacted soldiers she was acquainted with, who sent a jeep to pick up her and fellow activists and ferry them deeper into the Strip, to the former site of Netzarim — a Jewish settlement dismantled by Israel during the 2005 Disengagement from Gaza.
Afterward, the settlers were reportedly transported back to the Gaza border, which they exited through an unofficial portal to avoid being stopped by security forces.
According to Kan, IDF higher-ups were unaware Weiss had entered the Strip. The public broadcaster said military sources were skeptical she had ever entered Gaza, after they checked months of entry logs and failed to identify who had approved her entry.
Following the report, the IDF told Kan that “the new details are being examined.”
Reservists of the 252nd Division operate in the Netzarim Corridor area of the central Gaza Strip, in a handout photo published November 6, 2024. (Israel Defense Forces)
“Weiss’s entrance into the Gaza Strip is unknown and was not approved in the proper avenues,” the army said. “If the incident took place it’s illegal and against protocol, and will be handled accordingly.”
Weiss, head of the Nachala settlement movement, told Kan that she entered Gaza using the same method she had used in the West Bank: latching onto Israeli military presence and setting up civilian communes that the government would ultimately recognize.
Speaking to Kan, Weiss described how she would seize on military presence in Gaza to gradually settle Jews there.
“How will we enter a military base?” she told Kan. “There are all sorts of creative ideas: so here you have a tent, and next to the tent there is a structure, and next to that there is a kitchen, and next to that there are kids, and so it goes on.”
Weiss said the prospective settlers were ready to resettle Gaza at a moment’s notice.
“We’re no longer getting ready to go in,” Kan quoted the 79-year-old as saying. “The moment we can enter — we enter.”
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)
She also noted that “if 300 people enter at once,” the army would have difficulty kicking them out.
At an October conference on the resettlement of Gaza, Weiss said that Nachala had set up six “settlement groups” comprising a total of 700 families “who are ready right now” to establish new settlements in Gaza, should the opportunity arise.
“We came here to settle the entire Gaza Strip, from north to south, not just part of it,” she told the conferencegoers.
Toward that end, she has expressed support for the expulsion of Gaza’s roughly two million Palestinian residents.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly denied that Israel intends to resettle the Strip. However, his pro-settler coalition partners, and members of his own Likud party, have spoken in favor of the idea.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits the Netzarim Corridor in the central Gaza Strip on November 19, 2024. (Maayan Toaf/GPO)
Weiss helped found Jewish settlements in the West Bank soon after Israel conquered it in 1967, and served for over a decade as mayor of Kedumim, one of the earliest settlements. She has also been implicated in violence against Palestinians, for which Canada announced sanctions against her and other far-right activists in June.
Her entry into Gaza, unbeknownst to top IDF officers, highlighted the army’s failure to prevent the illegal entry of well-connected civilians into combat zones, as exemplified by the case of Zeev Erlich, the 71-year-old amateur archaeologist who was killed in Lebanon on Wednesday.
Israeli researcher Zeev Erlich seen in IDF uniform before entering into southern Lebanon on November 20, 2024, hours before he was killed in a gun battle with Hezbollah operatives. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)
Erlich had joined a Golani battalion to visit an ancient fortress. He was let in by Col. Yoav Yarom, chief of staff of the Golani Brigade. Yarom and Erlich toured the archaeological site, believing it had been cleared, when Hezbollah gunmen opened fire at them. Erlich and 20-year-old Sgt. Gur Kehati were killed on the spot, and Yarom was injured.
The IDF Spokesman’s Office said that the colonel did not have the authority to approve Erlich’s entry, and that the proper process for a civilian to enter with troops was not followed.
Jeremy Sharon and Emanuel Fabian contributed to this report.
