Smotrich Asks Netanyahu to Approve Three Israeli Settlements Inside Gaza

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich renewed his push over the weekend for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to approve three new Jewish settlements in the northern Gaza Strip. He made the case in a post on X, tying it directly to Israel's 2005 withdrawal from Gaza and framing it as correcting what he called "the sin of the disengagement." Smotrich isn't a random backbencher floating a fringe idea. He runs Israel's Settlement Administration inside the Defense Ministry, and according to AntiWar.com he first announced in June that his office had already drawn up plans for three Gaza settlements and was simply waiting on Netanyahu's sign-off. He's not alone in pushing this. Defense Minister Israel Katz, a fellow Likud member, has said Israel will establish three "Nachala outposts" in Gaza, a settlement model that typically starts as housing for IDF soldiers before becoming permanent civilian communities, according to AntiWar.com. Smotrich is explicit that this is an election play. "Before us stands the choice, between a right-wing government that will continue the momentum of construction and expand it, and a dangerous left-wing government that openly declares its intention to evacuate settlements and outposts," he wrote, according to AntiWar.com. He's betting that permanent facts on the ground now make any future withdrawal politically and physically harder. The legal backdrop matters here. Israel's parliament repealed the 2005 disengagement law in March 2024, according to Türkiye Today, clearing the legislative path for settlers to return to areas evacuated under Ariel Sharon. Smotrich says Israelis are already "returning" to four settlements in the northern West Bank and that more than ten new points will be fortified in what he calls "northern Samaria," on top of the Gaza plan. The United Nations considers all Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza illegal under international law. Roughly 750,000 Israeli settlers currently live across 141 settlements and 224 unauthorized outposts in the West Bank, plus another 250,000 in East Jerusalem, according to Türkiye Today. The Palestinian Authority has repeatedly asked the international community to pressure Israel to halt settlement expansion, though no binding international enforcement mechanism exists. Any reasonable defender of the settlement push would argue Israel withdrew unilaterally from Gaza in 2005 hoping for peace, and got October 7, 2023, instead. From that view, permanent Israeli security presence in northern Gaza is a hard-nosed response to a failed experiment in land-for-peace, not an ideological land grab. Smotrich's own framing leans on exactly this argument. The timing is the complicating factor. A ceasefire was announced in October, yet Israeli strikes have continued. Middle East Eye reported that six Palestinians were killed and 23 wounded in Israeli attacks over a 24-hour period tied to this story, citing the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza, which also claims at least 73,356 Palestinians killed and 174,185 wounded since October 2023, with 1,230 killed since the ceasefire took effect. Türkiye Today separately reported that overnight strikes hit residential buildings in Gaza and killed at least eight people, according to civil defense officials there. The Israeli military, for its part, says its recent strikes targeted named Hamas commanders, identifying Salem Jamal Abdelrahman Abu Labad as a Nukhba special forces commander allegedly involved in the October 7 attack on Kibbutz Nir Oz, and Muhammad Abdelnasser Muhammad Khatib as a Maghazi Battalion commander, according to AntiWar.com. Hamas said last week that any deal on full disarmament of Palestinian factions depends on Washington and Israel actually honoring last year's ceasefire commitments, following President Trump's announcement that the US-led Board of Peace secured an agreement to disarm Hamas and other armed groups. Former Israeli Ambassador Alon Pinkas told Al Jazeera that Israel is "absolutely not" satisfied with that arrangement, though he did not elaborate on specific objections in the reporting available. Middle East Eye's coverage leans heavily on Gaza health ministry casualty totals and repeatedly characterizes Israel's campaign as "genocidal" in its own reporting language. This framing is not attributed to any named source and is not used by the other two outlets. Netanyahu has not publicly responded to Smotrich's request as of this writing. The open question is whether he approves settlement construction before Israel's next election, a move that would likely draw immediate condemnation from the UN and complicate whatever remains of ceasefire diplomacy, or whether he holds off and risks a political fight with his own coalition's right flank.