Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz renewed his call on Monday to establish Nahal outposts in northern Gaza, telling Israel’s Channel 14 television station that the move would help protect communities along the border.
“I intend to establish three Nahal outposts, which is also a military entity, in those places that were in northern Gaza,” Katz told the broadcaster during a tour of the Gaza Strip.
Nahal is a program within the Israel Defense Forces that combines military service with educational and social welfare projects, often involving community building.
A permanent presence in Gaza’s north “will improve the hold and defense of the communities,” Katz said, adding: “It’s something that’s needed at the right time.”
Katz first unveiled his plan to establish permanent outposts in the Gaza Strip in late December 2025.
“The vision I have seen since the beginning of the war is that in the northern area, the model of the Nahal core groups, which are military, will be significant, and there can be yeshivahs and other things,” he said.
At the time, his comments raised eyebrows among American forces headquartered in Israel as they appeared to contradict the U.S. administration’s plan for Gaza.
They also appeared to contradict earlier statements by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has publicly stated he does not support Jewish settlement of the Strip.
During the tour on Sunday, IDF officials told Katz that some 70,000 Palestinian terrorists have been killed or neutralized since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre and amid the ensuing war on the Iranian-backed terror group. The IDF now controls about 65% of Gaza, the military officials said.
Asked how he felt witnessing the destruction of terror infrastructure, Katz responded: “I feel good. Thank God. This is all the result of a deliberate policy aimed at removing threats. Instead of the raid method—going in and out—the IDF is inside, the terrorists are outside, and the houses are destroyed.”
Katz said this new approach extended beyond Gaza. “In Syria, in Lebanon, in Gaza, in Iran and in Yemen—facing enemies, we don’t contain, don’t wait and don’t fold. Exactly the opposite of what happened until now,” he said.
Some 6,000 terrorists from Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Fatah, as well as unaffiliated Gazan civilians, infiltrated the Jewish state’s southern border on Oct. 7, murdering some 1,200 people, wounding thousands and kidnapping 251.
Israeli ground forces entered Gaza on Oct. 27, following a weeks-long air campaign in response to the Oct. 7 attacks. Jerusalem’s stated goals for the war were to destroy Hamas as a military and governing force in Gaza, ensure that it can not threaten Israel again and return all hostages.
The war quickly expanded beyond Gaza, with Jerusalem also fighting Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon, battling terrorist groups in Judea and Samaria, conducting military operations in Syria, confronting Houthi attacks from Yemen, carrying out strikes inside Iranian territory and responding to attacks from Iraq.
