The Rabbi’s Declaration at Gush Katif
At the Gush Katif Museum in Jerusalem, a place devoted to the memory of Jewish settlement in Gaza, Rabbi David Yosef delivered remarks that drew sharp attention to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. According to reports of the address and a circulating video clip, Israel’s Chief Sephardi Rabbi asserted a claim to all of the land he described as occupied Palestine. He declared: “Gaza is ours” and “we will return there.” He also said that “there is no such thing as a Palestinian people” and that “they do not have rights.”
The statements were made in a museum whose story is presented through a specifically Jewish historical and commemorative lens. Founded in Jerusalem in August 2008—Av 5768, rather than Av 7768—the Gush Katif Museum traces Jewish settlement in Gaza from the Hasmonean period to the present.
Rabbi Yosef’s position gives his words particular religious and institutional weight. He is Israel’s Chief Sephardi Rabbi and Rishon LeZion, a major halachic scholar, and a member of the Shas Council of Torah Sages. He was elected in September 2024, succeeding his brother, Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef.
The declaration came amid intensified settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank, adding a wider political context to the remarks. In effect he declared: “No Palestinians now, No Palestinians tomorrow, No Palestinians forever.” Read together, the statements present a stark vision of territorial entitlement and exclusion—one that denies Palestinian peoplehood and political rights while asserting a future Jewish return to Gaza.
The video associated with the address is available here: watch the circulated clip.