Israeli Defense Minister Yisrael Katz declared Tuesday that the Israeli military “will never fully withdraw” from Gaza, while walking back earlier remarks about reestablishing settlements in the coastal enclave.
Ayman al-Raqab, a political science professor at Al-Quds University who spoke to Al Manassa, warned the policy signals an Israeli attempt to “Lebanonize” Gaza—replicating its military strategy against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.
Katz’s comments came during a ceremony marking the relocation of the Binyamin Regional Brigade base and the construction of new units in the illegal settlement of Beit El in the occupied West Bank. “Israel will never fully leave Gaza for security reasons,” Katz said, confirming plans to establish a military-civilian unit inside the besieged territory.
“We are deep inside Gaza, and we will never leave it completely. That will not happen. We are there to prevent a repeat of what happened [on October 7],” Katz stated, as reported by the Israeli daily Haaretz.
Katz also said Israel would, “at the appropriate time,” create Nahal garin settlements in northern Gaza—a military program that integrates Israeli youth into combat units before transitioning them into civilian settlement blocs.
The far-right settler group Nahala welcomed Katz’s statement as “a step in the right direction toward restoring Jewish settlement in Gaza.”
Katz’s messaging, combined with continued Israeli occupation and settlement ambitions, suggests a plan to “Lebanonize” Gaza, Al-Raqab told Al Manassa. The strategy involves maintaining armed presence in targeted areas while launching “surgical” military incursions under the pretext of curbing Hamas’s military capabilities, he explained.
“This isn’t new,” Al-Raqab said. “IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir previously claimed Gaza’s new border is the ‘yellow line,’ demarcated by physical barriers on the eastern edge of the Strip, marking zones under Israeli control even after the ceasefire.”
In a statement released Dec. 7, Zamir described the yellow line as “a new border, a forward defense line for the settlements, and a launch point for attacks.”
Al-Raqab pointed to Israel’s incursion into Jabalia refugee camp on Monday night—an area it had previously vacated under the ceasefire—as further evidence of this policy. “They withdrew, then returned, shrinking Gaza’s usable territory and expanding the yellow zone. The pattern is clear: ongoing occupation,” he said.
He argued that Israel’s endgame is to sabotage the current ceasefire framework. “The real obstacle for the Americans isn’t the absence of progress—it’s the silence of the surveillance base at the former settlement of Netzarim, which continues to monitor Gaza but ignores Israeli breaches.”
According to Al-Raqab, Israeli officials are using the issue of disarmament as a stalling tactic to avoid progressing to the next phase of the ceasefire plan. “They do not want peace. They do not want to stop the war. The ruling extremist elite in Tel Aviv is openly defiant of all negotiated terms,” he said.
He added that Palestinians are now awaiting a clear American position—specifically, a timetable for a full Israeli withdrawal from deep inside Gaza to the lines specified in the so-called Trump Plan.
Israel continues to violate the ceasefire it agreed to in October, bombing residential areas and displacement camps across Gaza nearly every day. It has also refused to move into the second phase of the agreement, demanding the return of all Israeli captives held by Hamas—even though only one body remains missing, believed to be buried beneath the rubble.
