JERUSALEM – Israel has plans ready to remove Palestinians from the Gaza Strip but is waiting for the United States to figure out where to take them, the defence minister said yesterday.
“There is no real solution for Gaza in the end without this migration,” Defence Minister Israel Katz told a conference hosted by Israeli news site Ynet and newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth.
The Israeli government “is organised and prepared to get them out, by sea, by air, by every way possible”, he said.
The US embassy referred requests for comment to the State Department in Washington.
US President Donald Trump, at the start of his second term, stunned much of the world by calling for all two million Palestinians to leave the Gaza Strip.
Trump spoke of developing the Mediterranean territory, devastated by Israeli bombardment since the 7 October 2023 attack by Hamas, into a luxury resort destination.
Trump walked back the idea following strong pushback including from Egypt, the only country other than Israel to border Gaza.
The proposal was also condemned by Palestinians themselves, for whom any effort to force them off their land would recall the “Nakba”, or catastrophe, their mass displacement during Israel’s creation in 1948.
Announcing a Gaza war ceasefire in October, Trump laid out 20 points for the territory that included no forced displacement.
Katz, known for his outspoken remarks, said that Trump had only “frozen” the idea as he looks for countries to take in Palestinians, as Egypt is not an option.
“The plan hasn’t been cancelled; it is being discussed all the time, even now, and I think there is no other solution for everyone’s good,” he said.
“But for it to happen, we need the US. When will we get their approval? Whenever it becomes clear that Hamas is not meeting its obligations” under the ceasefire, he said.
Katz, without citing his source, said 80 percent of people in Gaza wanted to leave but that Hamas was preventing them.
Forced displacement of civilians in occupied territory is considered a war crime under the Geneva Conventions.
The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Katz’s predecessor Yoav Gallant over alleged war crimes, which both Israel and the United States deny.
Israeli attacks have already internally displaced the vast majority of Gaza’s people following the unprecedented Hamas attack, which killed 1 221 people, according to official Israeli figures.
Israel’s offensive has since claimed 73 470 lives in Gaza, with more than 1 330 since the ceasefire, according to the Gaza health ministry, which operates under Hamas.
– Nampa/AFP
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