‘The people in Gaza are generally terrorists. They don’t deserve to live there’

At a picnic site and a monument to fallen Israeli soldiers just a few hundred meters from the Gaza border, Israel’s new pioneers plan to expand the country.

During the six-week war in Iran, international attention turned to Gaza. But for these would-be settlers, this issue remained very much in focus.

Visitors are handed out brochures reading “Our Gaza” that show how the Israeli army plans to settle the entire strip, creating settlements in the upper, middle and lower parts of Palestinian territory among the horizontal military corridors it has dug there.

“People in Gaza are often terrorists or terrorist supporters, and they don’t deserve to live there,” says Neri Abraham, an outspoken 19-year-old with curls and a braided kippah, as she points across the fields toward the Gaza fence and the ruins beyond.

“The good ones can stay if they want and live in peace under Israeli rule, but the rest must go to Egypt. What about the terrorists? Yes, they are terrorists and I don’t care what happens to them.”

Abraham and his colleagues are “religious Zionists” and the pioneers of a radical new social movement sweeping through Israeli politics and institutions.

They are dedicated to the creation of a greater Israel that includes not only Gaza and the West Bank, but also the Golan Heights and parts of Southern Lebanon.

Fueled by the political system that has given undue power and influence to Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, they have become the political and cultural force to be reckoned with in Israel.

His men, as skilled with weapons as they are with the Torah, now dominate much of the Israeli army and command most of the front-line commando and special forces units.

Avichi Goodman, 34, an Israel Defense Forces officer and rabbi whose father moved to Israel 40 years ago, says the sect’s success is explained by its willingness to take action and serve.

‘We must teach the Gazans what they lost. How do you do this? ‘You must take this land from them.’

Avichi Goodman, IDF officer and rabbi

Like others gathered near the fence, he exudes the rugged pioneering spirit of the country’s former kibbutzniks, combined with the piety of the black-clad ultra-Orthodox.

“Who shows up when help is needed? Religious Zionists,” says Goodman.

The group’s viewpoint and ideology are direct and formulaic, and many of the same arguments are expressed over and over again. These are practical heuristics used to counter any opposing view.

Goodman and two others remind London: Telegram A quote from former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir about weapons: “If the Arabs had given up their weapons today, there would have been no more violence. If the Jews had given up their weapons today, there would have been no Israel.”

The logic of the would-be immigrants is not only catchy but also serves their own interests.

“We’ve learned that the battle is binary. You win or you lose. If you choose the middle line, you’re going to get hit,” Goodman says.

“We must teach the Gazans what they lost. How do you do that? You must take this land away from them.”

“We want a victory now that will prevent future wars. We want to end all wars now.”

Beyond the fence in Gaza, people say “there is no war, but there is no peace either.”

As we approach, the roads hum because they still bear the traces of the tanks that attacked there on October 7, 2023. But more than two years of near-constant artillery fire was halted when a ceasefire came into effect in Gaza in October last year.

However, more than 720 people were killed in Gaza during the ceasefire by Israeli forces, and although conditions in the Strip have improved, they remain dire.

‘There are no basic needs of life. Our children do not go to school, we do not have rights, we do not feel safe. I constantly fear that famine will return.’

Abed Al-Hadi Kahman

Abu Said Al-Barrawi, a 57-year-old farmer, said he and other families “live like cats carrying their kittens from one place to another” in search of safety, food and shelter.

“I am a farmer, but the land I used to cultivate falls behind the farmers. [Israeli-controlled] yellow line. “I dreamed of returning after the ceasefire was declared, but nothing changed.”

Abed Al-Hadi Qahman, 40, from northern Gaza, said the winter that had just arrived was “like hell”.

“Our tent was blown away many times, our belongings got wet, we were trying to protect our children from the cold.

“We don’t have the basic needs of life. Our children don’t go to school, we don’t have rights, we don’t feel safe, we don’t feel like the war is over. I’m afraid of being displaced again, and I’m constantly afraid that famine will come back.”

Miraculously, the Gaza ceasefire, overseen by the US military team that US President Donald Trump parachuted into last year, has been in place for the past five weeks and the peace process continues.

A technocratic board of Palestinians has been created to govern the Gaza Strip, reporting to Trump’s Peace Board and a board that includes former British prime minister Tony Blair.

Although little reported, a plan to disarm Hamas was published last month.

The plan calls for the gradual delivery of weapons over an eight-month period and the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces after “confirmation that there are no weapons in Gaza.”

The disarmament process will be monitored by the arms collection verification committee, a body to be established by Nikolay Mladenov, a Bulgarian politician and diplomat who served on the Peace Board.

Hamas has agreed to disarmament in principle and has until the end of the week to accept the offer, but negotiations are expected to take longer.

The terrorist group is unhappy with Israel’s failure to comply with all elements of the first phase of the peace plan; It points to the lower-than-promised number of aid trucks entering Gaza, repeated Israeli military offensives and the recent tightening of the Israeli-controlled yellow line.

There is support for the disarmament plan in Gaza, but hopes that it will be implemented quickly are limited; this is a prerequisite for Israel’s withdrawal and the beginning of the reconstruction process.

“I am in favor of disarmament of Hamas, because their weapons did not provide us with security and did not protect us from the missiles of the occupation; instead, they served as a reason and excuse for the killing of people in Gaza,” Hamza K, a 32-year-old Gazan resident, said last week.

“I fear that Hamas may renege on the agreement it signed and cause Israel to return to war under this pretext.”

Israel is heading towards a general election in October, and the ruling coalition led by Benjamin Netanyahu will look for any excuse it can find to subvert the Gaza peace process.

Like the ceasefire in Iran, this is seen as something imposed on Israel by the United States, and many Israelis, like religious Zionists, see annexation as a better option.

provocative vision

At the opening of a new settlement on the West Bank this week, Smotrich provocatively laid out his vision for a greater Israel.

“There will be an expansion of our borders in Gaza. To the Litani in Lebanon, to Mount Hermon in Syria, to parts of the north, south and east,” he told the assembled crowd.

This is no longer a fringe view in Israel. Approximately 22 percent of Israel’s Jewish population identifies with the religious Zionist movement and supports its settlement goals.

Not all of them are extremists, but some are, and violence in the West Bank has reached unprecedented levels since October 7.

The UN recorded nearly 1,800 cases of settler violence between October 7, 2023, and December 16, 2024, for an average of four incidents per day.

More than 1,000 Palestinians, including at least 233 children, were killed by Israeli forces or settlers during this period.

“Jewish terrorism” is wreaking havoc in the West Bank with the support of the Israeli state, 21 of Israel’s top former security chiefs wrote in a letter signed last week.

In the letter signed by the former heads of Mossad, Shin Bet and IDF, it was stated that settler violence had turned into terrorism and threatened to overthrow the Jewish State.

“A black flag is waving above us” [Israeli] blue and white,” they said. “Jewish terrorism is wreaking havoc in Judea and Samaria [the West Bank]The letter states that, with the tolerance or worse, the support of government officials, he poses not only a profound moral failure but also a serious strategic threat to Israel’s security.

None of the settlers on the Gaza border Telegram He mentioned suggested violence or any other illegal action. But they were confident that they “had the truth” and were determined to do what they believed God required of them.

“We just want to make Gaza Jewish again,” said Hadat Barhai, a 36-year-old mother of nine and one of the movement’s local leaders.

“I don’t understand why after two and a half years [the Gazans] These miserable people are still there.

“The world must open its doors and let them go. They don’t deserve Hamas, but we can’t live together either.”

Telegraph, London

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