Gaza (Quds News Network)- Israel’s Minister of Housing and Construction Yitzhak Goldknopf has said “Jewish settlement” in Gaza is an appropriate response to the International Criminal Court arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.
Goldknopf made his comment in a post on social media after he “toured the Gaza Strip settlements” on Thursday.
“Jewish settlement here is the answer to the terrible massacre and the answer to the International Criminal Court in The Hague who, instead of caring for the 101 abductees, chose to issue orders against the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defence,” he said.
סיירתי היום בישובי חבל עזה. ההתיישבות היהודית כאן היא התשובה לטבח הנורא והתשובה לביה״ד הבינלאומי בהאג שבמקום לדאוג ל-101 החטופים בחר להוציא צווים נגד ראש הממשלה ושר הבטחון. pic.twitter.com/01GGVwcS1d
— השר יצחק גולדקנופף (@DOVRUTGoldknopf) November 28, 2024
The Times of Israel reported that the minister did not enter Gaza but viewed the Palestinian territory from the border with binoculars.
He was accompanied by Daniella Weiss, head of the hardline Israeli Nachala Settlement Movement, who was pictured showing Goldknopf a map of proposed future Israeli settlements in the war-torn enclave, labeled, in English, “map of the [settlement nuclei] in Gaza.”
The Nachala movement later said on social media that “the seeds of the settlement are ready! Only settlement will bring security! Our Gaza. Forever”.
Goldknopf has “repeatedly endorsed reestablishing Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip after the war” ends, The Times of Israel said.
In May, Goldknopf released a video message endorsing an Independence Day march demanding renewed Israeli settlement in the Strip.
In August, Goldknopf called for a dramatic expansion of settlement activity while accompanying Settlements and National Projects Minister Orit Strock and Yossi Dagan, chairman of the Samaria Regional Council, on a visit to the recently legalized Evyatar settlement in the West Bank.