The first signs of Jewish colonial resettlement in Gaza

Israel has demolished over 600 buildings to create a so-called buffer zone in what the Israeli military refers to as the Netzarim Corridor, which cuts Gaza in half and has been occupied militarily since November last year. The lack of clarification by the Israeli government over its plans for Gaza has facilitated the first visible signs of a very permanent-looking military occupation which, in line with repeated calls for colonial resettlement in Gaza, and indicates the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the enclave.

The New York Times has obtained and analysed satellite imagery of the Netzarim Corridor, showing that Israel controls an 18 square mile chunk of Gaza — 13 per cent of the whole coastal territory — which hosts military outposts; out of 19 bases, 12 are either recent constructions or have been expanded recently. “Anything that has been built there can be taken down within a day,” claimed Israeli military spokesperson Nadav Shoshani, linking the structures to “operational reasons”.

But when has Israel voluntarily reversed the opening salvoes of its colonisation process? Never.

Given the link between state, settler and military terrorism, compounded by the genocide in Gaza, it is unlikely that Israel will dismantle the military outposts in Gaza.

Meanwhile, even as Palestinians are prevented from accessing their towns and villages, Israel’s Housing and Construction Minister Yitzchak Goldknopf, and Daniella Weiss, the head of the Nachala Settlement Movement, crossed the nominal border into Gaza to survey the area for future Jewish colonial settlements.

“Jewish settlement here is the answer to the terrible massacre [7 October] and the answer to the International Criminal Court in The Hague who, instead of caring for the 101 hostages, chose to issue arrest warrants against the prime minister and the minister of defence,” said Goldknopf on social media.

According to Israeli media, the visit happened with the help of Israeli soldiers in Gaza without their superiors’ knowledge, prompting initial refutations of Goldknopf and Weiss’s presence in the enclave. Later, however, the IDF said that it will handle the illegal entry accordingly due to it being against protocol. Note the use of the term protocol, which does not even begin to touch on the reality of the existing military bases in Gaza as the first indications of colonial expansion and resettlement.

According to Kan, Weiss stated that the military presence will pave the way for Jewish settler communities that would be recognised by the Israeli government, in the same way that happened in the occupied West Bank. All of Israel’s settlements in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem are, of course, illegal under international law, which the Zionists treat with contempt.

Last October, Israeli ministers participated in an ultranationalist conference on Gaza’s border, with National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir calling for “emigration” as a “most ethical solution” to remove Palestinians from Gaza. Social Equality and Advancement of the Status of Women Minister May Golan promoted territorial theft as what hurts Palestinians the most.

Palestinian women obviously do not register on Golan’s ministerial radar.

Security is being touted as the main reason for settlement expansion in Gaza. However, the Zionist concept of “Greater Israel” is unfinished business and, with Donald Trump soon to be inaugurated as US president, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may well change his tune and give open support to land theft by illegal settlers in Gaza. After all, Israel’s genocide is not ongoing in order to allow Palestinians to move back to their land; they are being ethnically cleansed. Biding time has been Netanyahu’s strategy since Operation Protective Edge in 2014. A little more than ten years later, and with a subservient and complicit international community that even shadows Trump’s previous presidential record, Netanyahu will have garnered enough complicity and silence to see the genocide through and replace the indigenous Palestinians with Jewish settler-colonists.

While Netanyahu waited for the right moment, the international community preserved the Palestinians for genocide. It has been, and remains, a seamless and shameless collaboration indeed.

The first signs of Jewish colonial resettlement in Gaza