Group of ministers seeks OK for Hanukkah flag-raising ceremony at former Gaza settlement

Signatories, including from ruling Likud party, endorse pro-settlement movement’s call for defense minister to approve event in order ‘to proudly affirm that Gaza is part of Israel’

A group of eleven Israeli ministers, including eight from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party, urged Defense Minister Israel Katz on Thursday to authorize a flag-raising ceremony at the site of a former settlement in the Gaza Strip during the upcoming Hanukkah holiday.

In a letter published by the ultranationalist pro-settlement movement Nachala, which kickstarted the initiative, the ministers said, “It is time to proudly affirm that Gaza is part of the Land of Israel, belongs exclusively to the Jewish people, and must therefore immediately become part of the State of Israel.”

“We request an authorization for this event, which is essentially intended to hoist the Israeli flag over the ruins of the town of Nisanit,” the letter read, referring to a former Israeli settlement in the northern Gaza Strip dismantled during Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from the territory in 2005.

Among the ministers who signed the letter were National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Transport Minister Miri Regev, a Likud member and close Netanyahu ally.

The letter was also signed by 21 members of the Knesset — out of the parliament’s 120 lawmakers — from Ben Gvir’s far-right Otzma Yehudit party and Likud.

Nachala announced plans to hold “a flag-raising ceremony in Nisanit,” which lies in an area of Gaza now under Israeli army control, that abuts the border with Israel.

The letter said Hamas is repeatedly violating the ceasefire and that rather than being destroyed as a military force, the terror group is “gaining strength with each day that passes.”

“It is clearer than ever that…the situation today doesn’t meet the definition of victory in the war.”

Victory in the war “will be achieved only by the diplomatic step of taking territory, and making it an indivisible part of the State of Israel,” the letter continued.

Such a move would create a “long-term deterrent to our enemies” and show them, and the entire world, “Israel’s victory in the war,” they wrote.

The event is scheduled for December 18, the fifth night of Hanukkah, the eight-day Jewish festival of lights which begins on Sunday evening.

The defense ministry did not immediately respond to AFP’s request for comment on the letter.

Katz is not expected to approve the ceremony, unnamed security establishment sources told the Israel Hayom outlet.

The sources cited the diplomatic sensitivity of holding a civilian event inside Gaza and said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would also have to approve the ceremony. In addition, the area is currently a closed military zone.

The letter followed a similar missive sent by heads of local Likud branches to Katz on Wednesday, urging him to approve the event.

Also, on Wednesday, the Israeli army said it had arrested “several Israeli civilians (who) crossed the border from Israeli territory into the Gaza Strip.”

Honenu, an Israeli legal aid organization that assists detainees mainly from settler communities, said in a statement that “dozens of right-wing activists crossed the border fence with Gaza on Wednesday to call for the establishment of a settlement… on the ruins of Nisanit.”

Under the fragile ceasefire that came into effect in October between Israel and Hamas, the Israeli military withdrew to a line inside the Gaza Strip that allows it to control more than half of the territory, devastated by two years of war. The war was triggered by the Hamas-led invasion of southern Israel on October 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 people.

Nachala has campaigned for the establishment of Jewish settlements inside Gaza since the early months of the conflict.

The movement’s ideology has considerable support in the government. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who heads the Religious Zionism party, has called the enclave an “inseparable part” of Israel, and other ministers and lawmakers have been urging the leadership to impose military rule over it and reestablish settlements in the Strip.

Netanyahu has previously ruled out reestablishing settlements, though several of his coalition ministers and lawmakers of his own Likud party have touted the idea and even attended pro-settlement marches near Gaza organized by Nachala.