ISRAEL: Thousands of Israelis, including settlers and right-wing activists, marched towards the border with Gaza on Sunday (Jul 19), calling on the government to re-establish Israeli settlements in the war-shattered Palestinian territory. 

The demonstrators gathered near the border before walking in large numbers towards the fence overlooking northern Gaza, where Israeli security forces deployed to prevent participants from advancing further.

AFP footage showed marchers waving Israeli flags as soldiers and police blocked their access to the restricted area.

"We are walking today to tell the government of Israel and show all the world that this land belongs to us and that Gaza really belongs to us and that we want to go back there," said Mr Daniel Sellem, a participant.

"We lived there before they got us out in 2005."

Mr Sellem said the march was intended to push the government to authorise a return to Gaza, more than two decades after Israel evacuated all settlements from the territory under a 2005 disengagement plan.

"We are trying to put pressure on them, and I have a big hope that it will work and that we will go back and live there as soon as possible," he said.

"JUST THE BEGINNING"

Another participant, Mr Yechiel Greenblum, said the event marked what he viewed as "just the beginning" of a campaign to restore Israeli communities in the coastal territory.

"We are having a big march back to the Gaza Strip, back to where Jews lived for hundreds, thousands of years," he said, adding that the 2005 withdrawal had been temporary. "We are going back."

Mr Greenblum argued that there was "no reason" Jews could not return to settle northern Gaza.

Previous marches have likewise sought to pressure the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, one of the most right-wing in the country's history, to re-establish settlements in the territory - much of which has been rendered uninhabitable by more than two years of war.

Israeli forces currently control more than 60 per cent of the Gaza Strip, where daily violence continues despite a ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian group Hamas.