“A house on the beach, not a dream!”: the advertising slogan of a real estate agent sounded like sweet music to the ears of a portion of Israeli former settlers of Gaza, who left this territory in 2005 and who dream of returning there after the war.

Contractor Harey Zahav, who specializes in building homes inside Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, which are illegal under international law, caused controversy by posting on social media platforms in mid-December this poster of plans to build homes inside Gaza.

“This campaign expresses a desire to return but we don’t have any plans underway,” the real estate company’s owner, Ze’ev Epstein, told Israel’s Channel 13 television, responding to posts on Israeli social media criticizing his campaign. .

Although some former residents of Gaza’s Jewish settlements, which were evacuated by Israel in 2005, openly express a desire to resettle there one day, no senior Israeli official has spoken since the war with the Palestinian Authority began. Hamas on October 7 for a possible return of the Jewish presence in this territory where 2.4 million Palestinians live.

Today, MP Zvika Vogel, of the far-right Jewish Power party, said in an interview on public radio that Israel should take control of the northern part of the Gaza Strip and build “a new settlement” there.

Despite a unilateral withdrawal in 2005, Israel is considered by international law to be the occupying power of the Gaza Strip, territory captured in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Hamas took control of the Palestinian enclave in 2007.

“It was heaven”

According to a poll by the Jewish People Policy Institute think tank published in late November, 44% of Israel’s Jewish population favors “a civilian (Israeli) presence” in Gaza after the war.

For Hana Picard, a 66-year-old French-Israeli who lived for 16 years in a Jewish settlement in this Palestinian territory, “it is clear that they will return.”

In August 2005, the Israeli army removed her from this territory along with her family as well as more than 8,000 other Israelis as part of then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s plan for the unilateral withdrawal of Israeli forces and the demolition of the settlements.

As the war rages, “despite the deepest tension” Picard says she lives with, she sees this as the prelude to a “return.” “Inside, we dream of going back, as this is our home,” she declares from “her temporary home,” an 18th-floor apartment in a skyscraper at the entrance to Jerusalem.

More than 20,900 people, mostly women, teenagers and children, have been killed during Israeli military operations in Gaza, which began in retaliation for Hamas’ unprecedented attack on Israeli soil on October 7, which killed nearly 1,140 people, most civilians, according to the latest figures from both sides.

Missing her home in the former Jewish settlement of Sirat Khayam on the beach, Picard declares that “life there was heaven”. “It was a wonderful place, beautiful but also a place with an ideal life, a paradise,” she recalls pointing to a photo of her family in front of the house on the wall.

No doubt

In Jerusalem, at the Gus Katif museum, named after the former settlement block in the Gaza Strip, Oded Mizrahi, one of the curators, is convinced that the return is near.

“Everyone understands that Hamas cannot stay there (…). We have no choice but to rule (in Gaza) and then, I say as a believer, God will force things,” Mizrahi told the French Agency.

At the museum, one can see photographs, maps, religious artifacts from the destroyed Jewish settlements and also buy souvenirs, such as small bottles of sand from Ghus Katif and books about Jewish history in Gaza, which goes back, as he says , in ancient times.

One can also buy t-shirts with the newly printed inscription “We are coming home” for 35 shekels (9 euros). Mizrahi says the number of visitors has increased since the start of the war.

“I’m sure we’ll be back, without a doubt, but the question is when,” says Hannah Picard.