Settlers from the Nachala organization gathered near Israel’s border with Gaza on Dec. 18 for an event titled “Raising the Flag in Gaza,” Middle East Eye (MEE) reported on Dec. 19. As the name suggests, their aim is to establish Jewish settlements in the besieged territory, which has been razed to the ground by the Israeli army in more than two years of bombing. The event took place at the Sderot lookout point, a site overlooking the Gaza Strip from the southern Israeli city of Sderot. According to its own description of itself, Nachala “organizes groups of young couples whose goal is to establish new communities in Judea and Samaria.” Now it wants to expand into Gaza.
When the event began, one organizer said that the “sacrifice” of Israeli soldiers killed in Gaza would not be in vain. “Gaza is part of our ancestral inheritance, and we have returned to it in order to stay there forever. Gaza will be settled by Jews. Gaza is ours,” the organizer added.
The organizers wanted to breach the border into Gaza and raise a flag at the site where the settlement of Nisanit once stood, north of Gaza City, but were unable to do so after Defense Minister Israel Katz’s approval was not granted, MEE reports. Last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Katz faced pressure to approve the flag-raising in Nisanit even from within their own Likud party.
