Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir set out a plan on Thursday to remove Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and send them abroad. Speaking in the run-up to close-fought Israeli elections, he said the plan aimed to see the departure of 250,000 Palestinians from Gaza in the first year, followed by the rest of the roughly two million residents over the following six years. “It’s realistic,” said Ben Gvir, claiming that some countries were “ready” to take in Gazans, without naming them. “We must encourage the emigration of Gaza’s inhabitants,” he said, adding that he believed the plan did not mean forcing Palestinians to leave their land. Forced displacement of civilians in occupied territory is considered a war crime under the Geneva Conventions. For Palestinians, any effort to force them off their land would recall the “Nakba”, or catastrophe -- their mass displacement during Israel’s creation in 1948. Inflammatory comments from Ben Gvir, who is a key minister in the right-wing coalition of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, regularly draw international condemnation. Ben Gvir said his right-wing populist Jewish Power party would demand “a ministry in charge of emigration” during the formation of the next government, adding that his plan was “the result of a year and a half of work and... is concrete”. In a 20-page document titled “National Work Plan for Voluntary Emigration from the Gaza Strip,” a copy of which AFP has seen, Ben Gvir further says his plan offers a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Although members of the ruling right-wing coalition have made multiple statements about transferring Palestinians out of Gaza, it is unclear to what extent their remarks will be followed by action. The Oct. 27 vote is expected to be close, and there is no guarantee that the parties currently in power will remain so after then. Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz on Wednesday said his country was ready with plans to remove Palestinians from Gaza if the United States gave its approval. Katz has for several months been advocating such a measure, presented as the voluntary emigration of Gaza’s population. Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has even proposed extending the measure to Palestinians in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967. U.S. President Donald Trump, at the start of his second term, stunned much of the world by calling for all Palestinians to leave the Gaza Strip. Trump spoke of developing the Mediterranean territory, devastated by Israeli bombardment since the Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas, into a luxury resort destination. He then walked back the idea following strong pushback including from Egypt, the only country other than Israel to border Gaza. Israeli attacks have already internally displaced the vast majority of Gaza’s people following the unprecedented Hamas attack on Israel, which killed 1,221 people, according to official Israeli figures. Israel’s offensive has since claimed at least 73,470 lives in Gaza, with more than 1,330 since the ceasefire, according to the Gaza health ministry, which operates under Hamas.
