Weiss was born in 1945 in Bnei Brak, an orthodox suburb of Tel Aviv, then part of Mandatory Palestine. Her father was from the United States, and her mother was born in Poland and raised in Palestine from infancy.
Both were members of Lehi, a Zionist paramilitary group active during the British Mandate period.
She attended a religious high school in Ramat Gan, completed her military service through the Atuda academic programme, and studied English literature and philosophy at Bar-Ilan University.
In the 1970s, Weiss became involved in Gush Emunim, a movement that promoted Jewish settlement across the West Bank following the 1967 Six-Day War. She later served as the group’s secretary-general.
In 1987, following the killing of a Jewish settler, Ofra Moses, in a firebomb attack, Weiss led a group into the Palestinian town of Qalqiliya, where rocks were thrown and shots were fired. She received a 2,500 shekel fine and a six-month suspended sentence.
Daniella Weiss at a march in Sderot in 2024 (Alamy)Alamy Stock Photo
Weiss served as mayor of the West Bank settlement of Kedumim from 1996 to 2007. In 2010, she founded the Nachala Settlement Movement, which works to establish new Jewish communities in disputed areas, including unauthorised outposts. She remains its director.
Since the start of the 2023 war in Gaza, Weiss has advocated for Jewish resettlement in the territory, which was evacuated by Israel in 2005. Her organisation, Nachala, says it has already registered 500 families for future settlement in the Strip.
In November 2024, Weiss entered northern Gaza, including the former settlement of Netzarim, during Israel’s military operation in the area.
IDF soldiers allowed her to survey locations, despite military orders restricting civilian access.
The IDF later said it was investigating the incident. Weiss told media outlets she had “organised hundreds of settlers ready to imminently enter,” and that it would be difficult for authorities to remove them.
Weiss was featured in a CNN report published in December 2024, in which she addressed a group of supporters in the West Bank settlement of Karnei Shomron. “Register, register. You’ll be in Gaza,” she told attendees at a recruitment meeting.
A map displayed during the meeting showed plans for six settlement groups across the Gaza Strip.
Speaking to CNN at her home in Kedumim, she said: “No Arab, I’m speaking about more than two million Arabs. They will not stay there. We Jews will be in Gaza.”
She added “The Arabs want to annihilate the state of Israel so you can call them monsters. You can call them cleansing of Jews. We are not doing to them; they are doing to us.”
Weiss also appears in Louis Theroux: Settlers, a BBC documentary released this week.
Theroux follows the activities of Israeli settlers in the West Bank and interviews Palestinians affected by settlement expansion.
In the programme, Weiss discussed her family background and rejected claims that she incites violence. “I have nothing to do with terror,” she said. “It’s a lie. We are supporting the government.”
Israeli public support for some of Weiss’s positions has grown to a significant minority. A poll conducted in January 2025 by the Jewish People Policy Institute found that 26 per cent of Israelis support the re-establishment of the Gush Katif settlements in Gaza. Among supporters of the ruling coalition, the number rises to 51 per cent.
In January, Weiss was a speaker at the “Victory of Israel” conference in Jerusalem, alongside Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, promoting the return of Jewish communities to Gaza following the war.
In March 2025, Weiss was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by professors Amos Azaria and Shalom Sadik from Ariel University and Ben-Gurion University.
The nomination cited her “decades-long efforts in strengthening Jewish communities and promoting regional stability.”
Weiss has also been involved in recent domestic political debates. In early 2023, she appealed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to halt the government’s proposed judicial reforms.
She argued that the Israeli Supreme Court was “attempting to eradicate the national and Jewish element of Israel and needed to be stopped.”
