‘This is our land, we deserve it’: Dozens of Israelis planning to cross border and settle in Gaza
As the sun beats down on us near Kibbutz Be’eri in Israel, Avi looks out towards the place he really wants to live. It’s only two miles away and it shimmers in the sunshine.
“It would be our privilege,” he says, looking at his wife and three small children.
Their plan is to move to Gaza.
He’s not sure when it will be possible, but he’s hoping it will be soon, once it is safe to move in.
As if on cue, there is a boom as another shell is fired into Gaza from a nearby gun emplacement.
Avi is not alone.
Around us are dozens and dozens of Israelis who are keen to get into Gaza and claim the land as their own.
They have come to a conference on the resettlement of Gaza in Kibbutz Be’eri as a show of strength and determination. Many of them are couples with children.
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There is a tent where the youngsters are being entertained, a stall handing out drinks and a stage with speeches and music. People are making small talk in the shade of a pagoda.
There are lots of guns here, and the atmosphere is rich with a sense of frustration, entitlement and even excitement.
Reshit has come with her friends. She is the daughter of an Israeli soldier who spent months in Gaza and is now fighting in Lebanon. She is friendly, open, eloquent and utterly sure of herself.
So why would you want to live in Gaza?
Israelis waves flags as a conference is held on the resettlement of Gaza
“Because it’s our homeland,” she replies. “It says in the Torah that this is our home, this is our land, and we have every right to live there.
“So many soldiers have died in this. We have to keep doing what they started. They died for a reason. They started something. And I think it’s our duty for them and for their families to actually keep doing what they started.
“They sacrificed themselves for something so we have to sacrifice ourselves for that thing also.”
What, I ask, about the Palestinians who already live in Gaza? What should happen to them? She doesn’t miss a beat.
“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.”
Mass murder is not proposed by the other people we meet, at least not while talking to us, but the idea that the Palestinians should forego their land and be sent to other nations seems commonplace.
“Throughout history, countries who lose wars then lose their land,” I was told by a man called Boris, who says he is an activist for Likud, the political party of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Until recently, the idea of sending settlers into Gaza had very few supporters – a fringe proposal with almost no momentum.
Now right-wing politicians have jumped behind it with gusto as a growing sign of their determination not simply to beat Hamas, but to change the region.
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Smoke rises from Gaza as seen from southern Israel. Pic: Reuters
And so, along with the would-be settlers, there are politicians here, lending their weight.
Itamar Ben-Gvir, the outspoken minister of national security, turns up to lend his support, agreeing that Palestinians should be removed from Gaza.
Another VIP visitor is Ariel Kallner, an MP for Likud, who tells me that he is here to show his support for the settlers’ plans.
He insists that “total victory” in the war can only be achieved when settlers have set up a town in northern Gaza. In the distance, smoke rises over Gaza.
In a large tent to the side, a loudspeaker bursts into life.
Daniella Weiss takes to the stage to applause. Now a sprightly 79 years old, she has spent half a century encouraging settlers to set up communities in the West Bank.
She claims to have established more than 330 settlements and now, her focus is on Gaza.
“You know, it wasn’t easy. We have accumulated a lot of experience about how to do it politically, how to work with the politicians, how to work with the public, and how to encourage the pioneers to be able to settle in a place that is their land, but is also a difficult place to live in,” she says. “We can teach them how to cope.”
Sky’s Adam Parsons speaks with Daniella Weiss
There is another commotion, this time in the neighbouring field. Counter-demonstrators have turned up and a line of police officers is separating them from the settlers. They’re chanting their opposition and waving banners.
Mickal Frucktman bristles with anger. She says she was shocked to see Likud politicians at the event because “I think that means the government supports this idea”.
“What they want to do is illegal and it’s going to cause incredible problems. It’s going to totally ruin Israel morally, if there’s any moral shred left. And there are still 101 hostages being held.”
She looks at the settlers; they look back. It’s hard to imagine any common ground between these two camps, any fellow feeling.
And from somewhere near, there is a boom as another shell is launched into Gaza.
The moment could have felt so different. It should have felt so different.
It was supposed to come a long time ago, and it was supposed to be the outcome of a peace process, of reconciliation, of understanding, of coexistence and of healing.
If it had happened the right way, then we’d be celebrating two states living alongside each other, coexisting, sharing a capital city.
As it happened: France recognises Palestinian state
Destroyed buildings in Gaza, as seen from Israeli side of the border.
Pic: Reuters
Instead, the recognition of Palestine as a state comes out of the rubble of Gaza.
It has come as a last-ditch effort to save all vanishing chances of a Palestinian state.
Essentially, the countries which have recognised Palestine here at the UN in New York are jumping to the endpoint and hope to now fill in the gaps.
Those gaps are huge.
Even before the horror of the Hamas attack on 7 October 2023, there was almost no realistic prospect of a two-state solution.
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Two-state solution in ‘profound peril’
Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank and Benjamin Netanyahu’s divide-and-conquer strategy for the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza had made reconciliation increasingly hard.
The Hamas attack set back what little hope there was even further, while settlement expansion by the Israelis in the West Bank accelerated since then.
An updated map of Israel and Palestine on the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office website after the UK recognised the state of Palestine
The same questions which have made all this so intractable remain.
How to share a capital city? Who controls Jerusalem’s Old City, where the holy sites are located? If it’s shared, then how?
What happens to the settlements in the West Bank? If land swaps take place, then where? What happens to Gaza? Who governs the Palestinians?
And how are the moderates on both sides emboldened to dominate the discourse and the policy?
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Two-state solution ‘encourages terrorism’
Hope rests with Trump
Right now, Palestinian extremism is holding out in Gaza with the hostages, and Israeli extremism is dominant on the other side, with Netanyahu now threatening to fully annex the West Bank as a reaction to the recognition declarations at the UN.
It all feels pretty bleak and desperate. If there is cause for some hope, it rests with Donald Trump.
Donald Trump is the only man who can influence Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu (below). Pic: AP
Pic: Reuters
Over the next 24 hours in New York, he will meet key Arab and Muslim leaders from the Middle East and Asia to present his latest plan for peace in Gaza.
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, Indonesia, and Pakistan will all participate in the meeting.
Delegates applaud after Emmanuel Macron announced France’s recognition of a state of Palestine. Pic: AP
They will listen to his plan, some may offer peacekeeping troops (a significant development if they do), some may offer to provide funding to rebuild the strip and, crucially, all are likely to tell him that his Abraham Accords plan – to forge ahead with diplomatic normalisation between Muslim nations and Israel – will not happen if Israel pushes ahead with any West Bank annexation.
Netanyahu will address the UN at the end of the week, before travelling to the White House on Monday, where he will tell Trump what he plans to do next in both Gaza and the West Bank.
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If Trump wants his Abraham Accords to expand and not collapse – and remember the accords represent a genuine diplomatic game changer for the region, one Trump is rightly proud of – then he will force Netanyahu to stop in Gaza and stop in the West Bank.
He is the only man in the world who can.
World
Israel is increasingly ostracised – and no matter how strong its army, it’s not a good place to be
Emmanuel Macron was in his element. Touring the UN’s main hall, hugging fellow leaders before taking to the podium.
He was here to make history. France, the country that carved up the Middle East over a hundred years ago along with Britain, finally giving the Palestinians what they believe is long overdue.
As it happened: France recognises Palestinian state
Yvette Cooper witnessed the event looking on. Her prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer, did the same over the weekend. Foregoing such hallowed surroundings, he beat the French to it by a day.
“Peace is much more demanding, much more difficult than all wars,” said Macron, “but the time has come.”
There were cheers as he recognised the state of Palestine.
The time for what? Not for peace that is for sure. The war in Gaza rages and the West Bank simmers with settler violence against Palestinians.
The French and British believe Israel is actively working against the possibility of a Palestinian state. Attacks on Palestinians, land seizures, the relentless pace of settlement construction is finishing off the chances of a two-state solution to the conflict, so time for unilateral action they believe.
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Could UK recognition of Palestinian state affect US relationship?
Without the horizon of a state of their own, Palestinians will resort to more and more extreme means.
The Israelis say they have already done so on 7 October and this move only rewards the wicked extremism of Hamas.
But the Netanyahu government has undeniably sought to divide and weaken the Palestinians and has always opposed a Palestinian state.
Israel still has the support of Donald Trump, but opinion polls suggest even in America public sentiment is moving against them. That shift will be hard to reverse.
Read more:
Will Trump force Netanyahu’s hand?
More than three quarters of the UN’s member nations now recognise a state of Palestine, four out of five of the security council’s permanent members.
The move is hugely problematic. Where exactly is the state, what are its borders, will it now be held to account for its extremists, who exactly is its government?
But more and more countries believe it had to happen. That leaves Israel increasingly ostracised and for a small country in a difficult neighbourhood that is not a good place to be, however strong it is militarily.
China will evacuate 400,000 people over a super typhoon that slammed into the Philippines and Taiwan today.
Super Typhoon Ragasa, which is heading to southeastern China, has sustained winds of 134mph.
Thousands of people have already been evacuated from homes and schools in the Philippines and Taiwan, with hundreds of thousands more to leave their homes in China.
Filipino forecasters said it slammed into Panuitan Island off Cagayan province with gusts of up to 183mph on Monday.
More than 8,200 were evacuated to safety in Cagayan while 1,220 fled to emergency shelters in Apayao, which is prone to flash floods and landslides.
The projected route of Super Typhoon Ragasa, by the Japanese Typhoon Centre. Pic: Japan Meteorological Agency
Domestic flights were suspended in northern provinces hit by the typhoon, and fishing boats and inter-island ferries were prohibited from leaving ports over rough seas.
In Taiwan’s southern Taitung and Pingtung counties, closures were ordered in some coastal and mountainous areas along with the Orchid and Green islands.
Officials in southern Chinese tech hub, Shenzhen, said they planned to relocate around 400,000 people including people in low-lying and flood-prone areas.
Strong waves batter Basco, Batanes province, northern Philippines, on Monday. (AP Photo/Justine Mark Pillie Fajardo)
Shenzhen’s airport added it will halt flights from Tuesday night.
In Fujian province, on China’s southeast coast, 50 ferry routes were suspended.
According to China’s National Meteorological Centre, the typhoon will make landfall in the coastal area between Shenzhen city and Xuwen county in Guangdong province on Wednesday.
The International Space Station captures the eye of Typhoon Ragasa. (Pic: NASA/Reuters)
A tropical cyclone with sustained winds of 115mph or higher is categorised in the Philippines as a super typhoon.
The term was adopted years ago to demonstrate the urgency tied to extreme weather disturbances.
Ragasa was heading west and was forecast to remain in the South China Sea until at least Wednesday while passing south of Taiwan and Hong Kong, before landfall on the China mainland.
The Philippines’ weather agency warned there was “a high risk of life-threatening storm surge with peak heights exceeding three metres within the next 24 hours over the low-lying or exposed coastal localities” of the northern provinces of Cagayan, Batanes, Ilocos Norte and Ilocos Sur.
Power was cut out on Calayan island and in the entire northern mountain province of Apayao, west of Cagayan, disaster officials said.
There were no immediate reports of casualties from Ragasa, which is known locally in the Philippines as Nando.
On Monday, Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos Jr suspended government work and all classes on Monday in the capital, Manila, and 29 provinces in the main northern Luzon region.
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