By November 2023, a campaign known as "Returning Home" had already kickstarted. On 22 November, a conference took place in
Ashdod where various grassroots organizations convened. The event featured addresses not only from
far-right politicians such as
Otzma Yehudit MK
Limor Son Har-Melech but also from two from Netanyahu's conservative
Likud party,
Ariel Kallner and
Tally Gotliv. Son Har-Melech stated that there was "no escape from returning and fully controlling the Gaza Strip" and that full control was "extensive and flourishing settlement" unlike the Gush Katif settlements that were concentrated. While Gotliv called for a wall and tower in the northern part of Gaza immediately. Another speaker,
Yossi Dagan, had led an influential lobby in the Likud Central Committee. Dagan was a prominent settler activist who had to withdraw from a settlement in a small area of the West Bank that was de-settled in 2005 around the same time as Gaza. The new coalition plans to call on Israelis to join settlement nuclei (gar’inim) that will rebuild the former Jewish communities of Gush Katif, starting with the northern Gaza Strip and northern
Samaria. In December 2023, hundreds of settlement activists gathered in central Israel for another conference titled "Practical Preparation for Returning to Gaza." The director of Nachala,
Daniella Weiss, referenced the
October 7 attacks and the ongoing war for the need of the conference and resettlement, stating to reporters: "It's the end of the presence of Arabs in Gaza. It's the end....Instead of them, there will be many, many Jews that will return to the settlements, that will build new settlements." The conference advocated for building new Israeli settlements in Gaza and encouraging the displacement of Palestinians living there. About 5,000 mostly religious Israelis attended including a large presence of children and teenagers. The presence of so many members of the government marked the elevation of the resettlement movement from the fringe of politics to new prominence, as former advisor to prime ministers
Alon Pinkas wrote: "Even if you've seen one before, it's not the same. This was not a fringe opposition group: it was the government of Israel in all its political splendor, unabashedly showing its true colors. This was the governing coalition in an orgy of anti-state and antidemocratic euphoria." — Alon Pinkas, former advisor to prime ministers
Ehud Barak and
Shimon Peres in "An Orgy of Jewish Supremacy and Antidemocratic Euphoria, Encouraged by Netanyahu", published in ''
Ha'aretz'', 29 January 2024 The 11 cabinet ministers who attended the conference are listed in the table:
Map of proposed settlements The conference room was decorated with a giant map showing prospective settlements in the place of existing Palestinian towns and cities as well as 15 re-established ones that existed before Israeli
disengagement from Gaza in 2005. 6 were new, including large Jewish-Israeli-only settlements which were to be built on the current sites of the two largest cities in the Strip:
Gaza City (
2017 population 590,481) and
Khan Younis (2017 pop. 205,125), in addition to
Rafah (pre-war pop est.: 280,000, but which at the time of the conference had over a million refugees and residents living there). The new settlements named were:
Map of a Hebrew Gaza City Organizers also presented a
map of a new Gaza City, also published in the
Wall Street Journal, with new Hebrew names for the neighborhoods and the significance of the new names. The following table summarizes the material shown on that map:
Criticism Coercing "voluntary emigration" or ethnic cleansing In an interview outside the conference and in another the next day on
i24NEWS, director of Nachala and leader of Israeli West Bank settlers Daniella Weiss called for the further holdback of food deliveries and other humanitarian from the Gaza Strip so that the Palestinians there would leave or "want" to leave. Security minister Smotrich said, "we need to find a legal way to voluntary emigrate" Palestinians, before
Shlomo Karhi clarified: At an Aliyah and Immigrant Absorption Committee meeting on Monday, Meirav Leshem-Gonen, mother of hostage
Romi Gonen, said:
Canada's Global Affairs department issued a statement saying that "Canada rejects any proposal that calls for the forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza and the establishment of additional settlements. Such inflammatory rhetoric undermines prospects for lasting peace." In
Ramallah, Palestine, the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates of the
State of Palestine Described as a festival, it included a
sukkot tent city, a tour of "lookout points" into the Gaza Strip, and logistical preparations for settling in Gaza. Prior to the festival
Likud minister
May Golan, nine Likud Knesset members and six branch chairmen circulated an invitation to an event being organised on the festival's second day. A
Haaretz editorial commented that effectively it was "signed by the Likud party" The Likud event was intended to include a tour of
Kibbutz Nirim. A few days before it was scheduled to take place however the kibbutz released a statement that they had not been consulted, that they had no interest in the tour and that it would not happen; the tour was cancelled. The settlers watched as bombs fell on the northern Gaza Strip. Many of those participating had decorated their
sukkahs with signs declaring they were getting ready for their permanent home in Gaza or claiming ownership of the land. Others such as
Ben Zion Gopstein sold stickers calling for Jewish revenge and director of Nachala
Daniella Weiss stated that "The Gaza Arabs lost their right to be here."
Limor Son Har-Melech, an
Otzma Yehudit MK, stated, "Gaza is the property of our ancestors since time immemorial, we will not rest until we settle it again". One attendee responded to a question regarding what should happen to Palestinians in Gaza, stating, "We should kill them, every last one of them. And if the government won't do that then we should just kick them out. This is our land. And we deserve it." == Settler actions ==