During Israel’s ongoing invasion of Gaza, Israeli settlers gathered in a festive-like atmosphere at the border of the bombarded area.
When Norway-based Afghan journalist Yama Wolasmal interviewed them, several expressed their support for a total expulsion of the Palestinian population – and claimed that even children should be considered terrorists and members of Hamas.
– I can see how children are terrorists as well, explains one of the settlers when asked if he considers children innocent in the war.
– I can’t have as next door neighbors Nazis, says another.
– All the children are Hamas and they will be very happy to see all of us burned all over the world and they will destroy the whole world, and the christian world together with that.
Many of the Jewish settlers belong to an ideological movement that, for religious and nationalist reasons, completely rejects the idea of a Palestinian state. Instead, they advocate for full Israeli control over the entire area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea – often through violent expulsion of Palestinians.
“A creative solution”
The movement has increased its influence under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s rule, particularly through his alliance with far-right and deeply religious parties that openly support the settlers’ agenda. In practice, many settlers operate outside the law, and there are recurring reports of violence, harassment, and even murder of Palestinian civilians. Despite extensive international criticism, these abuses rarely lead to legal consequences.
Yama Wolasmal visited settlers near the Gaza border, where several of them described their vision for the future: a Gaza completely without Palestinians. One of the interviewees believes that the Palestinian people as a whole bear responsibility for Hamas’s attacks on October 7, 2023:
– They are accomplices of the crime, they are supportive of it and they were part of it and we just have to say again it is not going to happen again.
He confirms that the Jewish settler movement wants to take over all of Gaza, but could not answer what should happen to the more than two million Palestinians currently living there:
– Lets find some creative solution. We don’t want them to die, and that’s different from what they want. We want them to be displaced, 100%, so lets work together.
“We want to finish the job”
When the journalist notes that large parts of Gaza are already in ruins, he responds:
– We want to finish the job.
Despite several settlers openly advocating for ethnic cleansing, they claim they are not extreme, and testimonies about attacks on Palestinian families, burned houses, and cars are dismissed as false.
Instead, they describe war and ethnic cleansing as potentially necessary – a path to lasting peace – and point to Germany during World War II as a historical example.
