Joshua Leifer writes:

Daniella Weiss, the 79-year-old leader of the far-right settler organization Nachala, stepped out of her white Mitsubishi SUV and into the parking lot of the Sderot train station, a mere three kilometers from the Gaza Strip. It was Dec. 26, the second night of Hanukkah, and for weeks Nachala had been aggressively promoting a celebratory “procession to Gaza” and candle-lighting ceremony in a closed military zone by the border. The event was to be the next step in Nachala’s escalating campaign to rebuild Jewish settlements in Gaza. If they could not yet enter the Strip, they would at least try to get as close as possible.

A group of teenage girls in ankle-length skirts rushed to take selfies with Weiss, who was sanctioned by the Canadian government in June for perpetrating extremist violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. Nearby, a scrum of yeshiva students from Sderot jumped and chanted, “Am Yisrael Chai” — an old slogan that means “The people of Israel live,” which has become a nationalist mantra. In the back corner of the parking lot, two shipping containers (what the settlers call caravans) emblazoned with the words “Gaza Is Ours Forever!” sat atop heavy flat-bed trucks waiting, it seemed, for the order to drive into the devastated territory. In the distance, occasional explosions in Gaza illuminated the horizon with a hellish light, the sound rattling the windows in an adjacent strip mall.

“We are going to take this procession to the area of the Black Arrow, to a hill that overlooks Gaza,” Weiss told +972, describing Nachala’s plan for the night. (The Black Arrow is a memorial to Israeli paratroopers, administered by the Jewish National Fund, less than a kilometer from the cement and razor-wire barrier that separates Gaza from Israel.) “Hopefully, the police will let us get there,” she added, grinning. “We always find a way.” [Continue reading…]