In late September 2024, several social media accounts shared a roughly one-minute clip described as showing Israelis giving boat tours "off the coast of Gaza to watch it get bombed and see the place where they plan to build new settlements."
The clip comes from the final scene in an hourlong documentary , "Holy Redemption: Stealing Palestinian Land," produced by the Turkish state-controlled media company TNT World. In the clip, the film's narrator is heard describing a scene:
That same night, while Gaza is relentlessly being erased, they took a boat with the first families ready to occupy the land of those who are being killed and starved to death.
The "they" referenced by the video's narrator are members of the most-extreme wings of the Israeli settler movement, which, generally speaking, seeks to establish Jewish settlements on Palestinian land — in part to frustrate attempts at a two-state solution and in part to fulfill biblical prophecies about the return of the Holy Land to the Jewish people.
The documentary focused on extremist settlers who use or tacitly endorse violence against Palestinians as part of their settlement strategy. The woman shown leading passengers to the boat in the viral clip is Daniella Weiss , a leader in the ultra-conservative Nachala settlement organization. The trip appears to have been connected to a larger settler conference held in January 2024.
NBC News covered that larger event, "Settlement Brings Security," in which participants made an explicit call for the Jewish resettlement of the Gaza Strip and interviewed Weiss about its purpose:
The conference, dubbed "Settlement Brings Security," was led in part by the right-wing Nachala organization, a group advocating for the expansion of Jewish settlements, which are considered illegal by international and humanitarian bodies. The event called for Israel to rebuild settlements in both Gaza and northern parts of the occupied West Bank.
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"After Oct. 7th, history changed," [Weiss] said, referring to the Hamas attacks that day on Israel, in which around 1,200 people were killed and 260 people were taken hostage into Gaza. "It's the end of the presence of Arabs in Gaza. It's the end."
"Instead of them, there will be many, many Jews that will return to the settlements, that will build new settlements," she said.
The filmmakers of "Holy Redemption" said they obtained exclusive access to a closed-door conference, which seems to have followed this larger event, in which members of the settlers movement argued over which "first families" would occupy various parts of a reconstructed Gaza.
This is the context that preceded the boat ride shown in videos. Following that conference, according to the filmmakers' reporting, several families took a boat ride from a town just north of Gaza to view the land they believed would one day be theirs, as described by the narrator [emphasis ours]:
We were invited to a closed-door conference. We left Jerusalem heading to Yavne. Just steps away from Gaza, the main settler organizations are holding a conference near the border to select the first Jewish families to settle in Gaza. We are the only media invited to cover it. As we hear Israeli bombs falling on Gaza, they already discuss how much land each family will take, and the destiny of the people of Gaza, the exiles. That same night, while Gaza is relentlessly being erased, they took a boat with the first families ready to occupy the land of those who are being killed and starved to death.
This conference and the views of extremists who participated in it are factual and have been covered by numerous reputable media outlets . It is important to note, however, that w hile the footage appears to be genuine, the "boat tour" itself was not a regular commercial exercise as implied by some social media posts, nor was it something that would be available to people outside these extremist movements.
Finally, it is important to correct the notion, implied by viral posts, that the actions or views of the most-extreme elements of the Israeli settler movement represent Israel as a whole. They do not. Weiss' actions are considered criminal in Israel, and she and her organization have been sanctioned by the United States and several other nations since April 2024.
Sources:
Chotiner, Isaac. "The Extreme Ambitions of West Bank Settlers." The New Yorker, 11 Nov. 2023. www.newyorker.com, https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/the-extreme-ambitions-of-west-bank-settlers.
"Israeli Settler Conference Exposes Deepening Chasm - as Airstrikes Rock Region." The Independent, 29 Jan. 2024, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israel-settler-gaza-netanyahu-middle-east-b2486763.html.
O'Carroll, Lisa, and Peter Beaumont. "Extremist Israeli Settlers Hit by EU and US Sanctions." The Guardian, 19 Apr. 2024. The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/19/extremist-israeli-settlers-sanctions-eu-us.
"Right-Wing Israeli Ministers Join Thousands at Event Calling for the Resettlement of Gaza." NBC News, 29 Jan. 2024, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/right-wing-israeli-ministers-join-thousands-event-calling-countrys-res-rcna135863.
"TRT World Exclusive: Holy Redemption: Stealing Palestinian Land." YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQOtBztR7i4. Accessed 25 Sept. 2024.
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