Israel’s far right sees a chance to drive out hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from Gaza

The main idea of the information is that there is a plan for a long-term Israeli occupation of Gaza. Prime Minister Netanyahu has indicated that Israel will bear the security responsibility in Gaza for the foreseeable future, which implies a long-term occupation. The plan is similar to the current situation in the West Bank, where the Israeli military is deployed and has freedom of action. There is opposition to this plan both internationally and domestically, as it would be seen as ethnic cleansing of Gaza. However, the majority of domestic opposition does not necessarily mean that people would actively prevent it. There is also support within the far-right in Israel for the reestablishment of Jewish settlements in Gaza, which could potentially lead to the displacement of Palestinians. The Defense Minister opposes this plan, but mainly due to logistical and budgetary concerns, not the idea of Israeli control in Gaza. Here's our next question, which I think is a proverbial $64,000 question when it comes to the Gaza conflict. It comes from a subscriber named David. Hello, my name is David. I'm from Scotland. My question is, is there a long-term plan regarding what will be done with Gaza? If there is one, what is it? And what level of scrutiny and debate has there been surrounding this plan to test and examine it? Alof? Well, I think that the only plan that I can think of is a long-term Israeli occupation of Gaza. That from the beginning, Prime Minister Netanyahu, while refusing to hold any cabinet level or other discussion about different scenarios for the post-war reality in Gaza, from the very early days of the war, he was saying time and again that Israel would have to bear the security responsibility in Gaza for the foreseeable future. And this is a euphemism for long-term occupation. How do we know? Because this is what's happening in the West Bank. In the West Bank, after several years of Oslo, in which the Palestinian Authority had the security responsibility in Area A, in the main Palestinian town, after 2002 and the second Intifada and the Israeli reoccupation of the West Bank and these towns, Israel took over that responsibility. So we see the idea of occupation where you have some local authorities taking care of basic services and social services and so on. But the Israeli military is deployed and the Israeli military has freedom of action. And in the case of the West Bank, there is an armed Palestinian police. In Gaza, there are no volunteers to do that. Israel has indicated its refusal to bring back the Palestinian Authority from the West Bank to Gaza. And as Netanyahu just said a couple of days ago, no to Hamastan, no to Fatahstan, which means a long-term Israeli occupation. The far-right in Israel and the far-right parties and large parts of Likud, of Prime Minister Netanyahu's party, support the reestablishment of Jewish settlements in Gaza. Both in the area that was a settlement area before the disengagement of 2005, but also in northern Gaza, in areas that were destroyed, neighborhoods and towns and villages that were destroyed during the war and now, you know, populate them with Israelis. And the way Israel conducted the war so far indicates that this is a possibility. Clearly, there is a strong international opposition to that and this would be depicted internationally as ethnic cleansing of Gaza. And presumably, majority domestic opposition to it, no? Yes, but look, the majority of domestic opposition was also there vis-à-vis the West Bank settlements. And they exist with hundreds of thousands of Israelis living there. So the question is not if you ask people, do you support it, but would you go out of your way to prevent it? So Netanyahu at first said something against the settlements in Gaza, but I think it should be judged over time. But the basic plan, which is now more in the open, of Israeli occupation with military occupation, with building the facilities for that, as happened in Gaza before Oslo, it's now on the table. And we just heard the Defense Minister Gallant warning against it. But Gallant's opposition was not to the idea of Israeli control in Gaza, but the price of that occupation in terms of deployment and the budgets and so on. But this is not, this is secondary opposition, I would call it. It's not primary opposition to the idea of reversing the disengagement, taking Gaza back under Israeli control. And again, for the far right, they see an opportunity to drive out hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from Gaza to the Sinai and maybe to other Arab or Western countries, in the same way that President Bashar al-Assad drove out millions of Syrians, of Sunni Syrians, out of Syria to strengthen the Alawite minorities all over the country during the civil war. And the far right in Israel is basically demanding that.