Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper said that a massive conference will be organized in occupied Jerusalem next Sunday to encourage settlement in the Gaza Strip, in which about 20 Israeli ministers will participate, some of whom are from the ruling Likud Party.
The newspaper explained in a report published yesterday, Tuesday, that the conference, organized by a coalition of settlement organizations, will involve thousands of Israelis from the religious and extreme nationalist movement, including ministers and members of the Israeli Knesset, and will discuss the post-war phase in Gaza.
She referred to Israeli ministers and officials who were active in mobilizing for the conference and calling for participation in it, and quoted Tourism Minister Haim Katz – who is from the ruling Likud Party – calling for the return of Israeli settlements in Gaza, and his emphasis that settlement is the only way to bring security to Israel.
Katz said that the attack on Israel last October 7 confirms that “the foolishness of uprooting settlements from Gush Katif and northern Samaria (the West Bank) must be corrected.”
Gush Katif are settlements in the Gaza Strip from which Israel withdrew in 2005 during the reign of former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as part of a unilateral plan known at the time as disengagement, which also included the evacuation of 4 settlements in the Jenin district in the northern West Bank.
The Israeli minister called for canceling the disengagement plan and returning settlements in Gaza, stressing that this constitutes an important beginning.
He said that restoring Israel’s security “will come through a strong military strike and the resumption of settlement in the Gaza Strip and northern Samaria, and it will also be a strong message to our enemies that we will never be broken,” as he put it.
A call to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state
Anadolu Agency reported that Israeli Minister of Culture and Sports Miki Zohar called for attendance at the conference.
Zohar said in a video clip in which he appeared alongside the head of the Samaria Council – which administers the occupation settlements in the West Bank – and the leaders of the Nahala settlement movement, “We will hold an important conference in which we explain well the importance of settlement, and why preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state is important.”
Zohar added, “After what we experienced on October 7, everyone has become aware that our path to victory as a people and as a nation is through preserving the values and principles expressed by settlement and preserving the land.”
He stressed the importance of the conference in promoting settlement, and said, “I am sure that everyone who comes to the conference and hears what we will say there will understand well that the meaning of the country’s security and the future of our children begins first with settlement and preserving our land,” as he put it.
Anatolia also quoted the head of the Samaria Council, Yossi Dagan, as saying, “The Oslo Accords and the expulsion (from the settlements) brought about this holocaust, and the resumption of settlement in the Gaza Strip and the northern Gaza Strip first and the return to northern Samaria will give us security.”
By the Holocaust, Dagan seems to mean the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation, which led to the killing of about 1,300 Israelis and the capture of about 250 others.