AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA): A far-right Israeli minister has called for the re-establishment of illegal settlements in the Gaza Strip after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for the regime’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former minister of military affairs Yoav Gallant over their genocidal crimes in the besieged Palestinian territory.
Yitzchak Goldknopf, the Israeli regime’s housing and construction minister, said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, that he had inspected sites in the Gaza Strip while sharing photos from a visit to the Netzarim area in central Gaza, which separates northern Gaza from the south.
“Today, I toured the Gaza Strip settlements,” Goldknopf wrote, stressing that settlement was “the answer to the International Criminal Court in The Hague who…chose to issue arrest warrants against the prime minister and the minister of defense.”
The photos and media reports indicated that the far-right Israeli minister had not entered the Gaza Strip but inspected the area through binoculars.
Last week, the Hague-based ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
The Israeli regime evacuated its illegal settlements and military presence from Gaza in 2005 following a disengagement plan. However, in recent months, Israeli ministers and lawmakers have renewed calls to reestablish settlements in the enclave, a move met with firm Palestinian opposition and widespread regional condemnation.
Earlier this week, Israel’s finance minister Bezalel Smotrich advocated for reoccupying Gaza and reducing its Palestinian population by half through what he claimed to be “voluntary migration.”
Palestinian leaders denounced Smotrich’s statement as violation of international law.
Meanwhile, satellite images showed that Israel was creating a new military dividing line in Gaza, separating off the far north of the strip, as reported by BBC.
The images and videos showed that hundreds of buildings had been demolished, mostly through controlled explosions, and Israeli troops and vehicles had been stationed across the new divide.
The partition (pictured below) stretches about 9 km across Gaza, from east to west, dividing Gaza City and the towns of Jabalia, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahia in north Gaza.
Analysts said the images suggested Israel was preparing to block Palestinian civilians from returning to the northern Gaza, where more than 100,000 people have already been displaced since last October.
Backed by the United States and its Western allies, Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7, 2023, after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas waged the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the Israeli regime in response to the occupying entity’s decades-long campaign of bloodletting and devastation against Palestinians.
The regime’s bloody onslaught on Gaza has so far killed 44,330 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 104,933 others. Moreover, at least 10,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.
It has also been committing war crimes such as starving the population and intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population in the besieged territory.
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