Settler Group Nachala Rallies at Gaza's Edge, Ben-Gvir Pledges to 'Return Us to All of Gaza'

Thousands stood at Israel's border with northern Gaza on Sunday, looking across the fence at the ruins of Gaza City toward the site of Nissanit, a settlement evacuated in Israel's 2005 disengagement. They came at the call of Nachala, the hardline settler movement that has pushed for Israeli resettlement of Gaza since the war began on October 7, 2023.

Tamar Ben Simon, who brought her three children from Haifa, told The New Arab she wants to live there. "I want to live there with my children," she said, framing it as a matter of Israeli security. Asked about the Palestinians of Gaza, she said: "First of all, in Gaza, there is no future for Arabs. It's a pity, but they did this to themselves."

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, leader of the far-right Jewish Power party, addressed the crowd. He said he hoped to reach Nissanit "even before the elections," and that if not, he hoped to hold the defence portfolio in the next government to finish the job.

"Return us to Nissanit, and to the entire northern perimeter, and to all of Gaza."

The rally fell weeks before Israel's October 27 election, a contest in which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud is competing with Ben-Gvir's Jewish Power and Bezalel Smotrich's Religious Zionism for settler votes. Dror Etkes, founder of the settlement-monitoring group Kerem Navot, said the far-right parties are using the Gaza resettlement push to distinguish themselves from Likud and to position themselves as the only bloc willing to resist Washington's opposition to settlement in the territory.

That opposition has a specific marker. On February 5, 2025, Donald Trump was asked in the Oval Office, alongside Netanyahu, about the prospect of Israeli resettlement in Gaza. "I don't see it happening," he said. The U.S. administration's stated plan for Gaza holds that Israel will not occupy or annex the territory and calls for Israeli forces to eventually withdraw as an international security force takes over.

Shaiel Ben-Ephraim, a political commentator and former Israeli diplomat, told The New Arab that resettlement is "not a question of 'if, but when,'" and that blocking the settler movement would carry political costs for Netanyahu. He noted that lawmakers including Ben-Gvir and Limor Son Har-Melech, along with influential rabbis, attended Sunday's demonstration and "will relentlessly campaign for this until they get what they want."

For some attendees the pull is personal. Nissim Avinoam said he helped establish Nissanit before being expelled in 2005. "I still miss it there, 21 years later," he said. For others, the ambition runs further. Tehiya Chaim, a mother of 11 from the West Bank settlement of Evyatar, said at the rally: "Our goal is to raise the flag of Jewish settlement, and to stand and strengthen our Prime Minister, without giving up, until we see Jewish settlement" return to Gaza.

Attendees described having logistics teams and government support in place to build quickly once political conditions allow, according to The New Arab's reporting from the site.