Israeli settler leader Daniella Weiss says Palestinians will 'disappear' from Gaza
Speaking
at Likud-backed conference, Weiss says thousands of settlers are ready
to move to Gaza, and Palestinians have 'lost the right' to be there
Daniella Weiss (C) at a conference on Monday billed 'a celebration for the preparation of settling Gaza' (MEE)
Published date: 21 October 2024
An Israeli settler leader has told a conference on Israel's frontier with Gaza that Palestinians will "disappear" from the territory and said that thousands of people stand ready to move there "from north to south."
Addressing a conference on Monday also attended by Israeli Security
Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Knesset members from Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party, Daniella Weiss called for
Palestinians living in Gaza to be relocated to other countries.
"We came here with one clear purpose: the purpose is to settle the
entire Gaza Strip, not just part of it, not just a few settlements, the
entire Gaza Strip from north to south,' said Weiss.
Weiss, the leader of Nachala, an orthodox settler movement which
organised the conference, said there were six settler groups and more
than 700 families looking to settle in Gaza, where more than 42,600
Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched its war against Hamas in October last year following the Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel.
"Thousands of people are ready to move to Gaza now," said Weiss.
"As a result of the brutal massacre of the 7th October, the Gaza
Arabs lost the right to be here ever, so they will go to the different
countries of the world. They will not stay here."
Weiss said that settlers who moved to Gaza would "witness how Jews go to Gaza and Arabs disappear from Gaza."
'Owners of the land'
Weiss’s comments were echoed by Ben Gvir,
who later told the crowd: “We are the owners of the land”. Ben Gvir also
called for Palestinians in Gaza to “voluntarily” transfer to other
countries.
Monday’s conference, which was billed by organisers as “a celebration
for the preparation of settling Gaza", took place near Reim kibbutz,
with the sound of Israel’s ongoing bombardment of northern Gaza audible
in the background and with smoke rising over the horizon a few
kilometres to the west.
Weiss told the conference that 700 families are ready to settle in Gaza (MEE)
It
was attended by more than a thousand people, many of them armed,
including settlers from both religious and secular organisations, with
events organised alongside the main speakers for families and children.
Some wore T-shirts and stickers openly expressing support for Meir
Kahane, the late founder of a far-right Jewish supremacist movement
banned in Israel.
One sticker showed an image of Kahane, a rabbi who was killed in New
York in 1990, and the words “Kahane was right”. Another read: “Jews,
revenge!” Others wore stickers which said, “Our Gaza forever”.
In addition to Ben Gvir, whose Jewish Power party is part of
Netanyahu's far-right coalition government, the conference was attended
by May Golan, Israel’s equality minister, and a number of Likud MPs.
'There are no innocent people in Gaza'
- Tally Gotliv, Likud MP
Middle East Eye asked Golan what Israel’s
plans were for the two million people still living in Gaza. Golan
refused to answer the question.
Tally Gotliv, a Likud MP, told MEE: “We need to occupy the complete
land of Israel. There are no innocent people in Gaza. Everybody who has
refused to leave the north is a collaborator.”
Monday's event took place against the backdrop of an escalating
military assault on northern Gaza where hundreds of thousands of
Palestinians remained trapped and subjected to daily air strikes.
The assault came amid reports from Israel that the military has
started to implement a strategy known as “the Generals’ Plan” which
called for the ethnic cleansing of the north of the territory, and
condemnation by aid groups who warned last week that northern Gaza is
being “erased”.
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Weiss’s Nachala movement has been building illegal settlements on
land in the occupied West Bank for decades. Earlier this year, the
International Court of Justice ruled that Israel’s occupation of
Palestinian territories since 1967 is unlawful and should end as soon as
possible.
Speaking on Monday, Weiss said the settler movement planned to use
the experience it had gained building settlements in the West Bank and
the Golan Heights, internationally recognised Syrian territory annexed
by Israel, to send “pioneers” to Gaza.
About 9,000 settlers previously lived in 21 Israeli settlements in
Gaza but these were dismantled following Israel’s withdrawal from the
territory in 2005.
Weiss said: “We have political support, we have public support, and
we have the experience that we have accumulated in 55 years of settling
Judea [and] Samaria [the occupied West Bank], the Golan Heights.
“We plan to take what we have acquired in the years of settling Judea and Samaria and to do the same thing here in Gaza.”