Israel drafted plans to create 3 Israeli towns in northern Gaza, minister says

Senior Israeli minister says plans already completed for the resettlement of northern Gaza and urges Netanyahu to authorize the establishment of the first three towns.

By World Israel News Staff

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Israel has completed planning work for three new settlements in the northern Gaza Strip and urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to authorize their establishment, casting a return of Israeli civilians to the enclave as necessary for the security of communities along the border.

Smotrich made the remarks Monday during a visit to southern Israel, where he met Sderot Mayor Alon Davidi and toured rehabilitation projects in Gaza-border communities devastated in the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attack and the ensuing war.

“The Settlement Administration under my leadership in the Defense Ministry has completed the groundwork, and we are ready to establish three settlements immediately as soon as we receive the green light from the prime minister,” Smotrich said, according to Hebrew-language reports.

“I call on the prime minister — give the approval, let us complete the mission and restore real security to the residents of the south.”

The Religious Zionist Party chairman said the proposed communities would be built in what he called the “northern perimeter” of the Gaza Strip.

He argued that the Israel Defense Forces, which he said already controls nearly 70 percent of the territory, should seize the rest of Gaza, defeat Hamas and create a line of Jewish communities that would serve as a security belt for Sderot and other towns near the border.

“Where there is no settlement, there is no security,” Smotrich said. “We are not returning to the reality before the Simhat Torah massacre,” referring to October 7, 2023.

The comments were the clearest indication yet that Smotrich’s office has moved from public advocacy for renewed Israeli settlement in Gaza to operational planning, though any such move would require Netanyahu’s approval and would face strong international opposition, including from Washington.

The United States has opposed Israeli settlement in Gaza and has instead promoted a postwar framework built around the Trump administration’s Board of Peace, a Palestinian technocratic governing body, an International Stabilization Force and reconstruction in areas outside Hamas control.

Earlier this month, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Netanyahu’s directive for the IDF to seize 70 percent of Gaza was not part of the American plan. “We have a plan. It doesn’t call for that,” Rubio told lawmakers.

Smotrich’s statement also places him at odds with the formal direction of US-backed talks over Gaza’s future, which envision Hamas’s disarmament, the gradual replacement of Hamas rule and the reconstruction of the enclave under international oversight, rather than Israeli civilian resettlement.

Israel evacuated all 21 settlements in Gaza and removed more than 9,000 civilian residents during the 2005 disengagement under then-prime minister Ariel Sharon.

His latest comments came amid a broader settlement push in Judea and Samaria, where he holds significant authority over civilian planning.

Earlier this month, Smotrich announced approval for 2,162 new homes in three towns, saying Israel was “continuing to build the Land of Israel in practice.”

Davidi, the mayor of Sderot, praised Smotrich’s support for the border region and said the threat from Gaza had to be pushed farther away from Israeli communities.

“Finance minister, thank you for everything you have done for the envelope,” Davidi said. “I was also among those who called you and said, ‘Bezalel, fight,’ so that we would not stop the fighting until we moved the threat away from Sderot and the envelope. That is the minimum required so that residents of the area can live in security.”