Most Israelis don’t want to build new settlements in Gaza. That doesn’t mean it won’t happen.
In 2005, Israel forcibly removed more than 8,000 Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip and ceded the territory to Palestinian control. But far from ushering in an era of peace, the Israeli exodus kicked off a new stage of the region’s conflict. Hamas took over the strip and turned it into a launching pad for rocket attacks on Israeli population centers, while Gaza’s evicted settlers began advocating for Israel to retake and resettle the territory. Today, for the first time in nearly two decades, this aspiration is no longer a fantasy.
That’s not to say the Israeli public would welcome such a move. This week, a Hebrew University poll found that Israelis oppose efforts to resettle Gaza after the current war, by a commanding margin of 56 to 33 percent. This consensus accords with both U.S. policy and the official stance of the Israeli government. Turning back the clock and rebuilding Gaza’s Israeli communities, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently said, is “not a realistic goal.” Most Israelis know that constructing and protecting small Jewish enclaves in such a hostile environment would be a moral and military nightmare. Given this information, a reasonable observer might conclude that the possibility is off the table.
It’s not. That’s because the Netanyahu government is uniquely beholden to a radical minority of Israelis who are committed to resettling the Gaza Strip, even if this means displacing or expelling Palestinians. When that minority speaks, Netanyahu listens. His coalition received only 48.4 percent of the vote in Israel’s previous election, and its hold on power hinges on an alliance of hard-right parties whose constituents form the backbone of the back-to-Gaza movement. That movement started soon after Israel left Gaza in 2005, but it is no longer quixotic. These activists are gearing up for a fight, and although their success is unlikely, it is far from impossible.
“I sat next to the prime minister and told him, ‘The sole picture of victory in this war that will allow us to lift our heads, to recover Jewish pride, and to return to the true source of our strength … is settlements across the entire Gaza Strip,’” the far-right Parliament member Limor Son Har-Melech said last week in a video posted to social media. This cause is personal for Har-Melech, who was herself evacuated in 2005 not from Gaza but from Homesh—one of four West Bank settlements that were also dismantled at the time, in what was intended as a trial run for future Israeli withdrawals. Since entering Parliament at the end of 2022, Har-Melech has dedicated herself to rolling back the consequences of the Gaza disengagement.
