Tuesday, March 25, 2025 - Israel’s security cabinet has approved a controversial proposal to facilitate Palestinian emigration from Gaza, a move people believe could amount to ethnic cleansing.
Far-Right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Sunday, March 23
said the security cabinet approved the proposal by Defense Minister Israel Katz
to organize “a voluntary transfer for Gaza residents who express interest in
moving to third countries, in accordance with Israeli and international law,
and following the vision of US President Donald Trump.”
The decision marks a remarkable endorsement of a plan once considered a
mere wish by the far-right and comes despite the prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu’s earlier pledge not to permanently displace Gaza’s civilian
population.
Critics have said that any mass displacement of Gazans in the midst of a
devastating war would amount to ethnic cleansing, an act associated with war
crimes and crimes against humanity under international law.
Israeli officials have countered that emigration would be voluntary and
in line with international legal standards.
Martin Griffiths, the United Nations’ top emergency relief official, has
called the enclave “uninhabitable,” saying its people are “witnessing daily
threats to their very existence.”
The Israeli approval would establish an administration within the
defense ministry “to prepare and facilitate the safe and controlled movement of
Gaza residents who wish to voluntarily move to third countries,” according to a
statement from the defense ministry
Its work would include “establishing movement routes, pedestrian checks
at designated crossings in the Gaza Strip,” and infrastructure to enable people
to leave.
Israeli officials have presented the plan as a fulfillment of a desire
by US President Donald Trump to take over Gaza, expel its Palestinian
population to neighboring countries and turn it into a Middle Eastern
“riviera.”
The Palestinian Authority’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Varsen
Aghabekian Shaheen Said last month that Palestinians “are steadfast to stay in
their land and will not move.”
Katz said Sunday that Israel is using “all means to implement the vision
of the US president,” according to the defense ministry statement.
This month, Trump appeared to backtrack on his comments about displacing
Palestinians, telling reporters that “nobody is expelling any Palestinians.”
Steve Witkoff, the US special envoy to the Middle East, said last month that
the US initiative to rebuild Gaza won’t necessarily amount to an “eviction
plan” and that it was designed to “shake up everybody’s thinking.”
Last year, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country
had no intention to displace Palestinians or occupy Gaza.
“I want to make a few points absolutely clear: Israel has no intention
of permanently occupying Gaza or displacing its civilian population,” Netanyahu
said in a video statement in January 2024.
Trump’s proposal has, however, brought the idea further into the
mainstream, with Israeli politicians now openly discussing mass emigration of
Gazans as a solution to the war and Katz last week said that Israel may
maintain a permanent presence in the enclave.
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