Several thousand Israelis, including ministers who favor the restoration of settlements in the Gaza Strip, gathered in Jerusalem on Sunday night, calling on the prime minister to proceed with the project, according to AFP and news.ro

Members of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party and other far-right ministers attended the rally as fighting intensified between the Israeli army and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in Gaza.

“It is time to return to Gush Katif and encourage voluntary emigration,” said National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, referring to the group of Israeli settlements that were once in Gaza.

“Encouraging” the departure of Gaza residents

“Withdrawal leads to war, and if we don’t want another October 7, we must return home, control the territory and (…) encourage” the “voluntary” departure of the people of Gaza, he added.

According to the organizers, 11 other ministers were present at the meeting, which took place in a crowded conference center in Jerusalem.

Some speakers have called for the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza, saying that rebuilding settlements is the only way to guarantee Israel’s security.

Others chanted: “The Oslo accords are dead, the Israeli people live,” referring to the accords that were supposed to lead to peaceful coexistence between the two peoples, ratified in 1993 by PLO leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in the House of Representatives. White in the presence of US President Bill Clinton.

The rally showed that an extremist faction, long a minority in Israel, is now gaining strength, risking deepening the rift between Israel and its American ally.

Israel has occupied the Gaza Strip as well as the West Bank and East Jerusalem since the 1967 war. About 400,000 Israelis now live in the West Bank, in settlements that most of the international community considers illegal, along with three million Palestinians. On the other hand, Israel evacuated its citizens from 21 settlements in the Gaza Strip in 2005. The territory is home to 2.4 million Palestinians, the vast majority of whom have been displaced since hostilities began in October.

“This is an unrealistic goal”

Until now, Israel’s prime minister has never supported the plan to rebuild Gaza settlements, saying the plan is “not a realistic goal.” He has never once organized a meeting of his government devoted to “after” the war.

The war was sparked by an unprecedented attack by Hamas on October 7, which killed around 1,140 people in Israel, most of them civilians, according to AFP, based on official Israeli figures.

In response, Israel vowed to “destroy” the Islamist movement, which it classifies as a terrorist group like the United States and the European Union, and launched a massive military operation in Gaza that has left 26,422 dead, most of them women, children and teenagers. according to the latest figures presented on Sunday by the Hamas Ministry of Health.

Netanyahu’s government is the most religious and ultra-nationalist in the country’s history. Since coming to power in late 2022, he has made expanding settlements in the occupied West Bank a priority.

But his policy is openly at odds with the approach of the United States, Israel’s staunch ally. Earlier this year, Itamar Ben-Gvir, who is also the leader of the far-right pro-colonial party Jewish Power, called for settlers to return to Gaza after the war, a day after another far-right minister, Finance Minister Bezalel. Smotrych made a similar call. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller called their comments “irresponsible.”