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In an interview with Israel’s Channel 14 in mid-July 2026, Israeli Defense Minister “Israel” Katz went beyond the battlefield. From amid the ruins of northern Gaza, he said the scenes of destruction gave him a “good feeling,” before announcing an objective that extends beyond the military operation itself: establishing three “Nahal nuclei” on the very sites where Israeli settlements had stood before the 2005 withdrawal from the Strip.
Katz presented the move as a security necessity that would strengthen control and support the defense of nearby towns, declaring that the occupation army was shifting from a policy of “entering and leaving” to one of “permanent presence.”
The announcement came as the Israeli occupation continues to violate the ceasefire agreement in effect since Oct. 10, 2025, requiring the statement to be read within its broader military and political context. Israeli media viewed it as a proposal for a permanent settler presence in the northern Strip, going beyond the bounds of temporary military measures.
It is difficult to confine Katz’s statement to the realm of election-season bluster. It reveals the convergence of a settlement tool the occupation has tested over decades with a doctrine of destruction that reshapes geography before reshaping demographic reality, imposing long-term facts on the ground. These facts are fundamentally tied to expanding the scope of occupation to swallow new land and establish a lasting presence there at the expense of expelling its original inhabitants and preventing their return.
From military outpost to settlement: How do “Nahal nuclei” work?
The name “Nahal” is a Hebrew acronym for “Fighting Pioneer Youth,” a program launched by the Israeli occupation in 1948 after a delegation from kibbutz movements and Zionist youth groups approached Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, demanding that their members perform military service in cohesive groups rather than being distributed individually across units. From that request emerged a formula combining combat and agriculture, moving the soldier from the barracks to the land: beginning military service at a border outpost and ending it as a resident farmer there.
At the core of the program is what is known as a “garin,” a group usually made up of 30 to 50 young people from Zionist youth movements who receive training that combines weapons use with agricultural skills, then are deployed as a self-sufficient unit in an area classified as borderland or sensitive.
The group establishes what the Israeli establishment calls a “holding settlement” (hiyahazut), beginning as a small military-agricultural center under the simultaneous authority of an army officer and a youth movement guide, then gradually transforming into a permanent outpost and eventually into a full-fledged settlement.
The value of this tool lies in that gradual progression: The military settlement makes it possible to entrench a presence on disputed land under a security cover until it gradually becomes a settler reality that is difficult to reverse. This model has been tested historically. Between 1948 and 1967, Nahal established more than 40 settlements, while the total number it created throughout its history reached about 108 kibbutzim and settlements. A large number of them were established specifically along the borders, serving a dual function as both a forward defensive point and a base for settlement expansion.
This formula carries a painful significance for the people of Gaza. The first Nahal settlement, “Nahal Oz,” was established in December 1951 directly opposite Gaza City, on the edge of the Strip, to monitor its coastal plain under the security pretext of deterring the phenomenon of “fedayeen infiltration.” In that sense, the very tool Katz is invoking today to implant a permanent Zionist presence in northern Gaza is the same one that first appeared some 75 years ago on Gaza’s very edge.
Even so, this history contains an element that tempers any hasty reading. By virtue of its composition, the military character of the nucleus makes it subject to dismantlement by political decision when strategic calculations change. The Nahal settlements established in Sinai were removed after the signing of the peace treaty with Egypt, after the area was removed from the border zone the occupation had sought to entrench.
The nucleus is a tool that moves according to political and military decision, both in its establishment and its evacuation a feature that should be taken into account when assessing the fate of what is being announced today and its future trajectory.
Still, Katz’s choice of the “Nahal nuclei” formula in particular is laden with implications that go beyond the technical. It presents settlement as an extension of the army’s security mission and allows a military presence to begin under the banner of “security legitimacy” in the eyes of the international community, paving the way for it to be taken further later on. That is where the danger lies: The announcement begins with the politically least costly formula while leaving the door open to a more entrenched reality.
Northern Gaza: From dismantled settlements to election fuel
Before the 2005 withdrawal, the Israeli occupation administered 21 settlements in the Gaza Strip, home to about 8,000 settlers. In northern Gaza specifically, it established three settlements: “Nisanit,” the largest of them, with nearly 1,000 settlers; “Dugit,” a small secular settlement founded by fishermen in 1990, whose population did not exceed 60 settlers; and “Elei Sinai,” established in 1983 by settlers previously evacuated from Sinai after its return to Egypt, with about 350 settlers.
These settlements were evacuated as part of Ariel Sharon’s “disengagement” plan, which included the evacuation of all settlements in the Strip and four settlements in the northern West Bank, while the occupation retained control over the borders, crossings, and air and sea space.
These three names — Nisanit, Dugit, and Elei Sinai — are the very focus of the current settlement campaign, and they are what Katz meant when he announced the establishment of “Nahal nuclei” in “the same locations that existed” before 2005. In Israeli right-wing discourse, the project is presented as a “return” to land that settlers claim was unjustly taken from them 21 years ago, in an attempt to strip the new settlement project of its character as a new colonial venture. It is the same wording raised by marches under the slogan: “After 21 years, we return home.”
Attempts to translate the idea into action on the ground began in March 2024, when settlers erected structures they called “New Nisanit” near the ruins of the former settlement. In February 2026, about 1,500 people gathered along the border to plant trees near the ruins of Nisanit in a symbolic event organized by the settlement movement “Nahala,” led by Daniella Weiss.
These moves reached their peak on July 19, 2026, when the movement led a mass march titled “Thousands March to Gaza,” attended, according to the organizers, by 28 ministers and Knesset members from the ruling coalition, most notably Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. During the march, Ben-Gvir declared that “Gaza is ours” and identified heading to Nisanit as the top priority, confirming coordination with the “Nahala” movement, which has begun preparing settlement groups on the ground.
At this point, the electoral dimension accompanying the announcement becomes clear. Smotrich expressed it in explicit political language when he warned that a change in government could “undermine everything achieved by the settlement revolution” over the past four years, calling for the project to continue in order to “prevent new evacuations.” This linkage reveals the file’s dual function as both an ideological project and an electoral mobilization tool used to consolidate the religious and nationalist right’s base as Netanyahu’s government approaches an election in a fragile position.
This shift takes on added significance in light of what the spokesperson for the “Nahala” movement said, seeing the participation of circles described as “more moderate” within the right as an indication of the expanding base supporting the project, after the idea of reestablishing settlements in the Gaza Strip had for years remained confined to the margins of the most extreme right.
When destruction becomes preparation: Doctrine and limits
The phrase with which Katz opened his interview that the scenes of destruction gave him a “good feeling” goes beyond the bounds of passing Zionist verbal brazenness. He immediately coupled it with the claim that the destruction of homes was part of “removing threats,” presenting devastation as a deliberate policy serving a specific function rather than merely a byproduct of fighting.
When this logic is placed alongside his announcement of “Nahal nuclei” in the same interview, the thread connecting the two becomes clear: destruction that reshapes the geography and demographic reality of northern Gaza precedes settlement and paves the way for it.
At this intersection, the link between the doctrine of destruction and settlement ambition becomes clear. Military settlement in its initial stage requires land that is “strategically sensitive” and free of demographic complexity. The systematic destruction of the urban fabric in northern Gaza, alongside the freezing of reconstruction and keeping the area under military grip, produces precisely that condition, providing an emptied space in which entrenching a military-settler presence becomes practically possible.
This makes the announcement of the three outposts an expected outcome of the course of war when it is managed as a tool for redrawing the land.
Katz occupies a precise position within the right-wing field competing over this issue. By announcing “Nahal nuclei” from inside the Gaza Strip, drawing on the language of the army and his position as defense minister, he moved the demand from the arena of settlement marches to the level of official decision-making. He gave a slogan adopted by a fringe movement ministerial and security cover carrying more weight than that of the ministers of Religious Zionism, giving him a place within the right-wing race led by Ben-Gvir and Smotrich.
He is benefiting from a position that allows him to turn slogans into plans, sites, and maps rather than leaving them as chants at the border fence.
Even so, confining the issue to the framework of election propaganda obscures its most dangerous aspect. Electoral mobilization explains the timing of the announcement and the scale of the noise surrounding it, but it does not explain how talk of settling northern Gaza has today become possible in realistic language that goes beyond slogans and ideological aspirations. The answer lies in the facts the occupation has imposed on the ground, foremost among them systematic destruction and the use of the ceasefire agreement as cover to complete the task without provoking international uproar.
Whether the announcement will move into actual implementation remains governed by a set of limits that must be weighed carefully. The first is the nature of the tool itself and its connection to military orders: A Nahal nucleus can be dismantled by political decision, as happened in Sinai, and what is established under security cover may be evacuated if countervailing political pressure emerges.
The second is the end of Netanyahu’s government term and the project’s connection to the timing of Israeli elections, as a shift in coalition balances could push the issue back to the margins from which it emerged. The third limit is tied to the contours of Trump’s plan for Gaza. His administration had previously embraced the idea of displacing the population, then retreated from it as part of the ceasefire agreement; its next course may either intersect with the settlement project or clash with it. Added to this is the position of international law, which classifies such steps as a violation, despite its limited deterrent effect on the ground.
In light of the current data, northern Gaza is likely to remain under military control for what may be a prolonged period, with a deliberate freeze on reconstruction, as an environment conducive to gradually maturing the settlement project.
The most important indicators to watch are whether the “Nahala” movement moves from symbolic action to establishing an actual nucleus on the ground with army backing, especially after the movement previously announced that it had begun registering prospective settlers to reside in northern Gaza; whether Katz will translate his announcement into designated sites and budgets; and Netanyahu’s position between pressure from his partners and the calculations of Trump’s plan.
The answers to these questions will determine whether the July announcement marks the beginning of a project being implemented gradually, or a new chapter in an election campaign whose banner is scorched earth.