Likud to hold event in support of resettling Gaza

A minister and nine MKs in Israel’s governing Likud Party will hold an event on Monday near the border with Gaza in support of resettling the coastal enclave, according to a flyer of the event published online.

The event is advertised as including a tour of Kibbutz Nirim led by its civilian security coordinator. The kibbutz said in a statement that neither it nor its security coordinator had received notice of the tour, and therefore, “it will not happen.”

“We are still waiting for the government and coalition members to take responsibility for the enormous failure and abandonment during the events of October 7 and for the bleeding wound in our hearts,” the kibbutz said. “Instead of holding political conferences to form settlements, it would be better for the government and its members to deal with bringing back 101 hostages and supporting and building the [Gaza] perimeter area towns and resurrecting them.”

The Likud event is part of a larger one called “Preparing for Settlement of Gaza,” scheduled for Sunday and Monday, October 20-21, which will include a “giant Sukkah city” encampment. The event consists of “field tours, settlement preparation workshops,” and “meeting pioneers of the past.” The larger event is sponsored by a series of groups, including the coalition’s two far-right parties, Religious Zionist Party (RZP) and Otzma Yehudit, as well as other right-wing and settlement groups.

The event

According to the flyer, in addition to the supposed tour in Nirim, the Likud event is scheduled to include a meeting with MKs and ministers, a panel with soldiers and family members of hostages, and a Simchat Beit Hashoevah (intermediate festival day) event.

Whatever Netanyahu & Gallant tell the @WhiteHouse their @Likud_Party is "preparing for the settlement of Gaza," including a tour of the border area with ministers & legislators. The catch? Kibbutz Nirim, that they planned to use as their launchpad, wants nothing to do with them pic.twitter.com/s04RVTuwZC

— Noga Tarnopolsky נגה טרנופולסקי نوغا ترنوبولسكي (@NTarnopolsky) October 16, 2024

The Likud event will be hosted by Social Equality Minister and Women’s Empowerment Minister May Golan. The MKs listed as hosts on the flyer are Avihai Boaron, Sasson Guetta, Tally Gotliv, Eli Dallal, Nissim Vaturi, Hanoch Milwidsky, Ariel Kallner, Keti Shitrit, and Osher Shekalim.

The flyer was published on the day that Makor Rishon published an interview with Construction and Housing Minister Yitzhak Goldknopf (UTJ), in which he said that the government was acting to exempt all yeshiva students from IDF service. A number of MKs from the opposition criticized both the Likud event and Goldknopf’s comments.

National Unity chairman MK Benny Gantz called the event “hypocritical” since settling Gaza would require increased military resources and manpower, which the coalition is not willing to provide. Gantz also noted that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who leads the Likud Party, has said publicly that Israel would not settle Gaza.

MK Gadi Eisenkot (also from National Unity) accused “large parts of the coalition” of acting to “shatter the large national consensus surrounding a just war” by acting to settle Gaza, which he wrote was a “controversial topic in Israeli society.”

Eisenkot, whose son Gal died in battle in Gaza during the first months of the war, added, “This is not what our sons and daughters sacrificed their lives for, in direct opposition to the goals of the war and the prime minister’s statements.”

Other MKs who criticized the event included Labor’s Merav Michaeli and Gilad Kariv.

Some 21 towns and approximately 8,000 Israeli settlers were removed from the Gaza Strip during the 2005 Disengagement.