While Gaza continues to be pounded by Israeli airstrikes and starvation sets in. It's important to remember there is a lot of ongoing violence and suffering in the occupied West Bank. The Palestinian Health Ministry says at least 433 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces there since October 7th. And then there is the violence from extremist Israeli settlers who are violating international law by living there. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has condemned the settler violence, but hasn't really done anything meaningful to stop it. In fact, on Thursday, Democrat Chuck Schumer, the first Jewish Senate majority leader, cited that violence as he took the bold step of calling for a change at the top of Israeli government.

It has become clear to me the Netanyahu coalition no longer fits the needs of Israel after October 7th. The world has changed radically since then. And the Israeli people are being stifled right now by a governing vision that is stuck in the past.

Now, the settler movement in the West Bank has gotten a fair amount of attention. But what has sort of flown under the radar is this very extreme idea of Israelis resettling Gaza once this war is over. For Palestinians, though, this isn't some abstract idea. To them, it looks a lot like ethnic cleansing.

This idea is like pouring kerosene onto a wildfire.

Today, CNN presses some of this movement's biggest supporters on their thinking from CNN, this is Tug of War. I'm David Rind.

CNN's chief international correspondent, Clarissa Ward is back with us today from Jerusalem. So, Clarissa, we've talked a lot about the proverbial day after, you know, what life will look like in Gaza and the Palestinian territories once this war ends. Israel's government has its plan. But you've been looking into renewed calls within Israeli society of what exactly Gaza should look like. So where does this start?

Well, it's interesting because obviously when you listen to the rhetoric coming from the white House, from other international actors, there is a favoring of a two state solution. There is a lot of discussion about the possibility of having the Palestinian Authority govern Gaza on some kind of a temporary basis, but here in Israel, those ideas really do not have a lot of traction. And what's been interesting to see in a post October 7th, Israel, is that ideas that six months ago would have been considered very fringe and frankly, even inconceivable are starting to gain some momentum. And I really referring particularly here to the idea of reestablishing Israeli Jewish settlements inside Gaza.

Hmhm.

Here at Katif. When Israeli police and soldiers arrived, they were greeted with a lock gate and a flaming barricade. The fire department was called in to put that fire out, and then a heavy earthmoving front end loader smashed through those gates, clearing away that barricade.

Some of our listeners may be aware that in 2005, the inhabitants of a settlement known as Gush Katif were forcibly evacuated by the Israeli army as part of the disengagement from Gaza.

Once inside, Israeli police went door to door speaking with the residents, telling them that it is now time to leave...

And this was seen by many supporters of the settler movement at the time as a sort of tragedy, if you will.

What were you promised when they said to you, you have to leave your homes? What were you promised that you would be coming to?

Well, they promised all sorts of things, and they never kept so far.

But there wasn't really a focus or certainly not an organized focus on trying to reestablish those settlements. What we see now, according to a recent poll, is that some 26% of Israelis would advocate for the reestablishment of settlements inside Gaza. So it's definitely an idea that's getting some traction.

So we've heard of settlements in the occupied West Bank. But this is the idea of Israelis moving back into Gaza.

Yes. And we spent some time with a settler activist, a 78 year old woman called Daniela Weiss, who really is the godmother of the settler movement. And she is now very focused on recruiting families to reestablish these settlements. She told us in an interview that they have recruited more than 500 families already. Obviously, we have no way to verify that, and that the way they are structuring it is by breaking those families down into smaller nucleus groups who can choose where in the Gaza Strip they want to live. So she told us that some of these groups want to live in Gaza City. Some of them want to live on the sea. Some of them want to live an agrarian existence. All of this, of course, is land. That is Palestinian land. But the answer that they give when you challenge them on that issue is essentially after October 7th, they lost their right to this land. I want to be very clear. This is not the majority of Israelis who are thinking along these lines. But when you talk to these far right Israelis, they believe firmly that they have more support as a result of October 7th. And having done this job for 20 years, David, I can tell you, and it probably wouldn't come as any great shock to any of our listeners either, that often after a brutal terrorist attack, you do see a hardening of positions. You do see a shift to the right in any society.

Sure. But this is kind of ideas that are, you know, go way back decades and decades for Palestinians and against to like the very heart of this conflict going all the way back. So I imagine this idea is just unbelievable to them. Right?

This idea is like pouring kerosene onto a wildfire in terms of the effect that it can have emotionally, in terms of anger, or in terms of the, frankly, capacity to incite violence because land is at the heart of this whole conflict.

More with Clarissa in just a bit.

Welcome back to Tug of War and my conversation with CNN's Clarissa Ward.

'There was a large conference that took place in Jerusalem at the end of January. More than a dozen Israeli government ministers attended that conference. The most well known being the national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir.

I want to focus a little bit on the day after what happens when the fighting finishes. And what is your vision for the Gaza Strip once this war is over?

Nats Hebrew

Interviewed the heritage minister, Amichai Eliyahu, who said that his position is that there should be a return to Gush Katif, which is the settlement that was dismantled in 2005. But he did caveat that by saying, we can't make a push to return to Gush Katif until Israeli society understands it as being righteous.

And how do you make that argument to them? How do you pitch it to them that this is somehow good for Israel?

Nats Hebrew

And what's very interesting is that the framework that they are using to try to recruit people is not one of religion, which is the traditional power of persuasion they rely on, but one of security. Their argument is that the best way to secure Israel is to have Jewish settlements in Arab areas. That is obviously a deeply flawed and incredibly controversial idea, but that is the idea that they are putting out there.

I was going to say, at least of which Hamas still controls Gaza. So how would that work.

In their idea or their telling of things? They propose that basically anyone who wants to leave Gaza should be able to leave, either to Arab neighbors or to European countries. They officially will say that they don't support the cleansing of these areas, because that is what it sounds like.

What it sounds like, right.

What happens to the Gazans who are living there now?

Nats Hebrew

But they say that anyone who wants to fight Israel will be killed, and that those Arabs who want to stay and live in peace with Israelis are welcome to do so, but obviously. You would be very challenged to find a single person in Gaza right now who would say that this is anything other than an awful idea, an immoral and illegal violation of basic international law?

Yeah, and I imagine the U.S. and other major players would be like, yeah, this is this is not happening. You've kind of talked about the hardening of positions after October 7th and kind of how society has been reshaped by these attacks and the war after. So from all the time you've spent there. Where do you get a sense the Israeli people are in terms of just their identity and what this place looks like going forward?

I think a lot of Israelis feel very frustrated that the international community and their view has turned against them. They feel that they are fighting for their lives. They believe that Hamas is absolutely hell bent on completely eradicating them. And one of the most unusual things about this conflict, or one of the most remarkable things, is that both sides are convinced that the other is committing genocide against the other. If that makes sense. Both sides are convinced that the other is intent on wiping them off the face of the earth. And so you do have a lot of passion, a lot of anger and a lot of fear. And fear is something that often then translates into the kind of hardening of positions that we were talking about. And so you do see people say it's unfortunate that children are dying. It's terrible that the situation in terms of the humanitarian crisis is taking place. But we have to finish this fight. We have to destroy Hamas. We have to defend our families.

And you get kind of this endless cycle that we've seen decades and decades. Clarissa thank you, really fascinating.

Thank you, david.

Tug of War is a production of CNN Audio. This episode was produced by Paola Ortiz and me, David Rind. Our senior producer is Haley Thomas. Dan Dzula is our technical director, and Steve Lickteig is the executive producer of CNN Audio. We get support from Alex Manasseri, Robert Mathers, John Dianora, Leni Steinhart, Jamus Andrest, Nichole Pesaru, and Lisa Namerow. Special thanks to Caroline Patterson, Brent Swales, and Katie Hinman. We'll be back next Wednesday. I'll talk to you later.