Speaking at an event hosted by settler leaders Tuesday evening to celebrate the recent legalization of several West Bank outpost settlements, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said cryptically, “It began in Gaza and it will end in Gaza.”
Netanyahu attended the event after convening a security cabinet meeting, which was reportedly moved up and cut short to allow senior ministers to attend the evening gathering. The meeting was reportedly called to approve military plans for the expansion of operations in Gaza, and did not discuss the hostage deal that Hamas said it agreed to last week.
The event, which was held in Jerusalem’s Mishkenot Sha’ananim neighborhood across from the Old City, took place amid a day of major protests urging the government to finalize a deal for an end to the war in Gaza and the release of all the hostages held by Hamas. It was hosted by the West Bank’s Mateh Binyamin Regional Council chief Israel Gantz, who also heads the settlers’ umbrella Yesha Council group.
At the event, Netanyahu told attendees, including several top ministers, that over the past 25 years he has seen the settlements in the West Bank “burst into bloom.”
“I want to congratulate those who believed in the vision,” he said, of “deepening roots in the land that has been ours for thousands of years.”
“This is a miracle revealed that testifies to the strength of our spirit, and the spirit is tested in the war of revival in which we defeat our enemies,” Netanyahu said. “And we will defeat them.”
Turning to Gaza, the premier told the crowd that he had just finished discussions with the security cabinet, saying that he couldn’t reveal much about what was discussed.
“But I will say one thing: It started in Gaza and it will end in Gaza,” he said, cryptically.
“We will not leave those monsters there, we will release all our hostages, we will make sure that Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel,” Netanyahu declared.
He also boasted that his government is blocking the creation of a Palestinian state.
“We are doing that, together,” he declared. “I said we would build and hold on to parts of our land, our homeland – and we are doing that.”
Speaking after the premier, Defense Minister Israel Katz told the attendees that “we are at a special moment.”
“Our role is to strengthen settlement and bring security,” he said, celebrating the legalization of several previously unauthorized West Bank outposts, including Sa-Nur and Homesh, two former settlements that were evacuated in 2005 alongside Israel’s disengagement from the Gaza Strip, at which time a law was passed forbidding Israelis from entering that part of the northern West Bank.
In the two decades since, there have been repeated efforts to reestablish a settler presence at the evacuated northern West Bank settlements, and last year the law forbidding Israelis from entering the area was repealed.
Katz added: “We will win the campaign in Gaza — let there be no doubt. We will bring back all the hostages and we will certainly defeat Hamas. Hamas will not control Gaza and anyone who does not want to be there is welcome to emigrate.”
Addressing Netanyahu, Ganz said: “You have taken steps to change the reality on the ground. You have recognized new settlements, established new ones, approved thousands of housing units and roads, and waged a determined war on terror.”
Ganz urged Netanyahu to “continue with this strength and move forward to apply sovereignty” to the West Bank, saying: “The people of Israel are behind you.”
The event was called to celebrate the government’s approval, in May, of 22 new settlements, including several wildcat outposts that are illegal under Israeli law.
A joint statement issued at the time by Katz and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who also serves as a minister in the Defense Ministry, called the decision “a step that will change the face of the area and shape the future of settlement for years to come.”
Israel captured the West Bank, along with the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, in the 1967 Six Day War and the Palestinians want all three territories for their future state. Most of the international community views settlements as illegal and an obstacle to resolving the decades-old conflict. Several Arab and Muslim states including Saudi Arabia and Indonesia have said that the establishment of a Palestinian state is their condition for normalizing ties with Israel.
Israel annexed East Jerusalem, but has refrained from taking the step in the West Bank. Far-right leaders including Smotrich have also pushed for Israel to reestablish settlements in the Gaza Strip during the ongoing war there with the Hamas terror group.