Israeli settlers and senior government figures are expected to join a mass march toward Gaza on Sunday demanding the reestablishment of Jewish settlements in the devastated Palestinian enclave.

Organized by the Nahala settler movement under the slogan of “returning home after 21 years,” the march is backed by more than a dozen extremist organizations and parties, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud.

The Times of Israel reported that cabinet ministers Itamar Ben Gvir, Bezalel Smotrich, and Shlomo Karhi are among those expected to attend, while the Israeli military declared the entire Gaza periphery a closed military zone after citing the marchers’ intention to enter the Strip illegally.

Likud lawmaker Avichai Boaron told Ynet that the event had been coordinated with the Israeli military, police, and other authorities, while openly calling for the colonization of Gaza.

“We need to return and settle in the Gaza Strip,” he said, claiming that Israel’s 2005 withdrawal had caused the 7 October attack and that renewed settlement would “increase security.”

His comments expose the march not as an isolated settler spectacle, but as part of a broader state-supported campaign to turn Gaza’s mass destruction and the displacement of its Palestinian population into an opportunity for permanent Israeli expansion.

The march follows Israeli War Minister Israel Katz’s announcement earlier this month that Israel intends to establish three military-linked Nahal settlement outposts on the sites of former colonies in northern Gaza.

Katz described the devastation of Gaza as the product of a deliberate policy, while Israeli officials continue to expand their territorial grip over the Strip.

Israeli occupation forces now control more than 60 percent of Gaza, with nearly the entire Palestinian population compressed into the remaining shattered and overcrowded areas.