Israel Prepares Beit Hanoon for Resettlement

The destruction of Beit Hanoon since October underscores how Israel’s ceasefire with Hamas has coexisted with irreversible facts on the ground. Satellite imagery analyzed by Al Jazeera’s “Sanad” unit shows that between October 8 and January 8, Israel cleared roughly 408,000 square meters (4.39 million square feet) in the northern Gaza town, including the remains of at least 329 homes and agricultural sites.

The operation began directly along Beit Hanoon’s edge facing Israel, about 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) from Sderot, replacing damaged neighborhoods with flattened terrain by mid-December.

Before the clearing, imagery showed war damaged but standing structures. Within weeks, bulldozers erased entire blocks. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine (UNRWA) says Israel had damaged or destroyed 81 percent of Gaza’s structures by last October, with northern areas bearing the heaviest impact.

An Israeli officer quoted by the Long War Journal described Beit Hanoon’s razing as part of an effort “to create a significant security perimeter and make it very difficult for the enemy to return to its infrastructure.”

United Nations Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese offered a darker assessment, saying that “under the fog of war, Israel is going to destroy Gaza, displace the Palestinians, and attempt to reoccupy and conquer the land.”

Buffer Zones and Settlement Signals

The clearance aligns with increasingly explicit political signals. In December 2024, Israeli ministers and lawmakers gathered in Sderot overlooking Gaza, pointing toward Beit Hanoon and Beit Lahiya while saying more than 800 Jewish families were ready to move in “as soon as possible,” according to Haaretz. On December 23, Defense Minister Israel Katz outlined plans for “Nava Nahal” agricultural-military bases in northern Gaza, presenting them as replacements for settlements removed in 2005.

Katz later made the intent unequivocal: “We will not withdraw an inch from Syria. We will establish new settlement centers in northern Gaza to replace evacuated settlements. We will never withdraw from Gaza.”

The ambition predates the current campaign. In December 2023, Israeli real estate firm Harey Zahav posted an image of destroyed Gaza under the slogan, “Wake up, a beach house is not a dream!”

Even if formal settlements do not materialize, Israeli leaders have openly discussed carving out a deep buffer zone that would encompass towns such as Beit Hanoon.

International Alarm and Political Context

Foreign leaders have increasingly framed these actions as strategic, not tactical. In September 2025, French President Emmanuel Macron explained the key element triggering his July decision on recognition of Palestine was “the Knesset vote to restart West Bank settlements”. He argued that there was no Hamas in the West Bank, and that they just want to “destroy political bodies and the two-state possibility”, which he abeled as a terrible mistake for Israel.

That same month, Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani told the United Nations: “Their goal is to destroy Gaza so that it is unlivable, where no one can study or receive treatment, and to displace its population. Netanyahu wants war for greater Israel, to expand settlements, and to change the status quo in holy sites.”

Also in September, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Iceland, Ireland, Japan, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, and the United Kingdom jointly condemned Israel’s approval of 19 new West Bank settlements, warning the move violated international law and undermined prospects for peace, including any comprehensive Gaza plan.

Taken together, satellite imagery from Beit Hanoon and explicit Israeli policy statements despite growing international condemnation suggest that military clearance on the ground is intersecting with long term political objectives, reshaping Gaza well beyond the scope of ceasefire enforcement.

That pattern is reinforced by ceasefire data: according to Government Media Office of Gaza, since October 10, Israel has carried out at least 1,300 violations, including 430 shootings at civilians and more than 600 bombing or shelling incidents, underscoring how sustained kinetic pressure has accompanied the physical transformation of the area.