Mrs Weiss heads a radical settler organisation called Nachala, or homeland. For decades, she has been kickstarting Jewish settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, on Palestinian land captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war. Some in the settler movement have cherished the dream - or pipedream - of returning to Gaza since 2005, when Israel ordered a unilateral pullout, 21 settlements were dismantled and about 9,000 settlers were evacuated by the army. (Reporting from Gaza at the time, I saw many who were literally dragged out.)
Many settlers saw all this as a betrayal by the state, and a strategic mistake. Opinion polls suggest that most Israelis oppose resettling Gaza, and it is not government policy, but since the Hamas attacks on 7 October it is being talked about out loud - by some of the loudest and most extreme voices in Israel’s government. Mrs Weiss proudly shows me a map of the West Bank with pink dots indicating Jewish settlements. The dots are scattered all over the map, eating away at land where Palestinians hope - or hoped - to build their state. There are about 700,000 Jewish settlers in these areas now and settler numbers are rising fast.
These people are war crimals, the radical settlers absolutely must be brought in front of the ICJ.
All settlers are radical. They have knowingly decided to move and stay in occuppied land under international law. The only settlers that didn’t have a choice in this are the children. Otherwise they have no right to be there. Not under international law. Not under humanitarian law. Invading a land that is not yours, yes, not even under Israel’s post 1967 borders. The palestinian territories are not Israel’s to have. The occupation has been declared illegal many times over. Settlers have to go.