US accuses Israel of ‘provoking’ Arab world

Katz vows Israel will build settlements in northern Gaza, later walks back comments

Defense minister’s original remarks came in defiance of positions taken by Netanyahu and Trump; Smotrich calls on PM to push West Bank annexation at meeting with US president

Defense Minister Israel Katz on Tuesday pledged that Israel would never leave the Gaza Strip and would resettle the northern part of the enclave, in defiance of commitments made by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump. He later hastily walked back his remarks.

Speaking at a meeting marking the establishment of 1,200 new Jewish homes in the West Bank settlement of Beit El, Katz had pledged that Israel would resettle northern Gaza.

That made him the most senior Israeli official to publicly support reconstructing the settlements Israel evacuated in 2005. He also said Israel would “never leave” the enclave.

“With God’s help, when the time comes, also in northern Gaza, we will establish Nahal pioneer groups in place of the settlements that were evacuated,” he said. “We’ll do it in the right way, at the appropriate time.”

Katz was referring to the Nahal military unit that, in part, lets youths combine pioneering activities with military service. In the past, many of the outposts established by the unit went on to evolve into full-fledged settlements.

Katz’s statement contradicted Netanyahu, who has repeatedly vowed that Israel won’t resettle Gaza.

His assertions also contradicted US President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan for Gaza. The document says Israel will withdraw from the territory and explicitly states, “Israel will not occupy or annex Gaza.”

Hours later, Katz’s office released a statement saying that “the government has no intention of establishing settlements in the Gaza Strip,” and that the comments he made at the Beit El meeting were said “solely in a security context.”

Despite the clarification, the US condemned Katz, suggesting he was harming efforts to move forward on the Gaza peace plan.

“The more Israel provokes, the less the Arab countries want to work with them,” read a statement sent to querying reporters, and attributed to a US official.

“The United States remains fully committed to President Trump’s 20-Point Peace Plan, which was agreed to by all parties and endorsed by the international community. The plan envisions a phased approach to security, governance, and reconstruction in Gaza. We expect all parties to adhere to the commitments they made under the 20-Point Plan,” the statement said.

A chorus of far-right voices in Netanyahu’s coalition have called on Israel to rebuild settlements in Gaza in the wake of the war launched by the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attack. Israel evacuated its settlements in Gaza, and withdrew all of its troops, under the 2005 Disengagement Plan. Under the current ceasefire, it controls roughly half the enclave.

Trump’s plan calls for the IDF to gradually withdraw from Gaza as Hamas disarms and an international peacekeeping force takes responsibility for the enclave’s security. The US is pushing for those steps, which form part of the second stage of the ceasefire, to begin soon.

But Katz said at the event Tuesday morning that Israel would not leave Gaza.

“We are deep inside Gaza and we will never leave Gaza — there will be no such thing,” he said. “We are here to defend and to prevent what happened from happening again.”

Before the retraction, Katz’s remarks on settlements drew criticism from Gadi Eisenkot, a former IDF chief who now heads a new political party opposed to Netanyahu. Eisenkot panned Katz for “another day in which he is acting against broad national consensus.”

“While the government votes with one hand in favor of the Trump plan, with the other it sells myths about isolated settlements in the Gaza Strip,” Eisenkot posted on X. He chided the government for “continuing to make irresponsible, empty statements that only harm Israel’s standing in the world.”

The government, meanwhile, is taking steps to expand settlements in the West Bank. At the Beit El meeting, Katz also praised what he called Israel’s “practical sovereignty” in the West Bank.

And one of the most prominent settlement advocates, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, called on Netanyahu to urge Trump to greenlight Israeli annexation of the West Bank, a longtime aspiration of the far right, when the two leaders meet next week.

Trump has previously ruled out Israel annexing the territory and warned the government against doing so. Nonetheless, Smotrich, speaking at another event on Tuesday, demanded that Netanyahu convince Trump to back Israeli annexation of the West Bank during his upcoming trip to the United States.

“Mr. Prime Minister, we expect you to return from Washington with a decision on de jure sovereignty,” Smotrich declared at an event marking the establishment of a new building for employees of the Civil Administration in the West Bank. He also called for settling Gaza.

“The day is not far off, that, God willing, this building will also provide government services to settlements in the Gaza area. I am instructing the director of government housing at the Finance Ministry to locate a building for opening a southern branch so that residents of the renewed settlements in Gaza will not have to travel all the way here,” he said.

Also on Tuesday, Smotrich declared that his “life’s mission is to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state — and I am sticking to this mission with full determination.”

It is the second time this week that Smotrich has called on Netanyahu to bring up annexation with Trump. Speaking with reporters ahead of his far-right Religious Zionism party’s weekly faction meeting in the Knesset on Monday, Smotrich insisted that Netanyahu “must finally also put Judea and Samaria on the table,” using the government’s preferred term for the territory.

In September, Smotrich proposed annexing 82 percent of the West Bank in order to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state. Since then, Smotrich and Katz have worked to expand Israeli settlement, leading to a government decision this week to build 11 new settlements and legalize or recognize eight illegal outposts.