The road to normalising colonial expansion in Gaza

Normalising genocide was a way to normalise colonial expansion in Gaza. Only three weeks after Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich revealed plans for three Israeli settlements, the Nachala settler group organised a march last Sunday, in which settlers and ministers, including Smotrich, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, Economy Minister Nir Barakat and other Likud politicians, marched to a closed military zone, bypassing the Israeli military’s roadblocks to reach the border with Gaza. The call was for rebuilding the former settlements of Elei Sinai, Dugit and Nisanit which were evacuated in 2005 under the Disengagement Plan by then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz is pushing for the establishment of three Nahal outposts in Gaza, which historically have proved to be the precursor to colonial expansion. 

Both Ben Gvir and Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi advocated for Jewish settlement in Gaza. Ben Gvir reiterated the so-called voluntary emigration scheme to forcibly displace Palestinians from Gaza, while Karhi described settling in Gaza as “a meaningful picture of victory.”

A colonial victory, however, is violent. Since before the 1948 Nakba, Zionist settler-colonialism has been replete with various forms of violence and dispossession. Throughout the decades, settler-colonial expansion across Palestine cannot be considered as anything other than an ongoing act of violence. Israeli settler narratives, therefore, remain violent, as there is history to tie to the expressed rhetoric. The genocide in Gaza is one example of recent violent colonial history.

The destruction of Gaza and the forced displacement of Palestinians not killed by Israel during the genocide are somehow portrayed as a necessity in Israeli settler narratives, but the fact remains that genocide was committed against Palestinians.

Another fact that cannot be omitted is that the international community took too long to call out Israel’s genocide, and it will now take too long to oppose colonial expansion in Gaza. When it is too late to speak out, the international community will issue a condemnation. 

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The Israeli military has also confirmed it is building a physical barrier in Gaza along the Yellow Line, “to prevent infiltration and protect Israeli troops and Israeli communities near Gaza.” Palestinians are already prevented from accessing the entirety of Gaza, which means that anything that is being constructed is being done with colonial expansion in mind, rather than rebuilding Gaza as the Board of Peace likes to remind and lament about. 

As Palestinians were butchered during the genocide, the international community refused to question Israel’s intent. The settler march organised by Nachala should raise many questions in the context of all the different strands of forced displacement employed against Palestinians in Gaza. This was not just a protest march – it was an affirmation that already has proposed plans awaiting the Israeli government’s approval. As elections approach, colonial expansion will play a major role since Israel was founded upon settlement and expansion on Palestinian land. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s silence regarding settlements is not opposition; it simply means that for now, biding his time is a better game.

Whether settlements in Gaza are imminent or not, the fact remains that plans exist, and it is precisely these plans that lend further complicity between settler movements and the government. One cannot survive without the other. 

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The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.