No. Gaza was under Egyptian control until 1967, after the six day war, when it was occupied by Israel. And then, after the Oslo accords, it came under Palestinian control. It was never actually Israeli territory as it is against international law to seize territory through conquest and has been since the end of WWII. The settlers should never have been there and had no right to be there.

I beg you, verify the claims you're making before making them.

Although, yes, you're right, Israel didn't remove the settlers purely because they were effectively squatting on the land. Another motivation, arguably the motivation that has led to so much other trouble, is Israel's anti-democratic determination to maintain a Jewish majority in government by maximising the number of Jews in Israel. As deputy leader Ehud Olmert put it:

"More and more Palestinians are uninterested in a negotiated, two-state solution, because they want to change the essence of the conflict from an Algerian paradigm to a South African one. From a struggle against 'occupation,' in their parlance, to a struggle for one-man-one-vote. That is, of course, a much cleaner struggle, a much more popular struggle – and ultimately a much more powerful one.

For us, it would mean the end of the Jewish state... the parameters of a unilateral solution are: To maximize the number of Jews; to minimize the number of Palestinians; not to withdraw to the 1967 border and not to divide Jerusalem..."

And a third motivation, as explained by Ariel Sharon's senior adviser, Dov Weisglass, was to freeze the peace process at a point that suited the Israelis:

"The significance of the disengagement plan is the freezing of the peace process, and when you freeze that process, you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, and you prevent a discussion on the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem [...]

And all that has now been frozen.... what I effectively agreed to with the Americans was that part of the settlements would not be dealt with at all, and the rest will not be dealt with until the Palestinians turn into Finns. That is the significance of what we did."

This attempt to portray Israel as a good faith partner, valiantly petitioning for peace and being rebuffed by those fanatical Palestinians, is ahistorical and ignorant.

So yes, this is a chicken and egg problem. Though yes, of course, there is the matter of what point in history you start from/stop at. Jews and Muslims have both lived in various parts of that region for centuries. It's why I'm totally unsympathetic to arguments about "ancestral claims" to the land. Never mind about who some man in the sky promised it to.

Jews and Muslims have both committed atrocities against each other. That's why I'm totally unsympathetic to arguments about which side is worse (although I will tirelessly point out to people who think either side is blameless that they're not).

As for "security concerns" again, I invite you to learn about the realities of those Gazan citizens going to work in Israel. I'll even start you off. Here's Gideon Levy talking about his observations of Palestinian treatment at the checkpoints. It's only 6 minutes long.

When you treat people like this, over and over again for decades, you will, of course, be "rewarded" with violence. Because you were never actually treating them with any empathy.