Israel’s defense minister has ordered the military to prepare a plan to evacuate the Gaza Strip, allowing its 2.1 million Palestinian residents to leave, in a move that aligns with United States President Donald Trump, to resettle them elsewhere.”
Israel Katz said Gazans should have “freedom of movement and migration” and countries critical of Israel’s war with Hamas were “obligated” to take them in.
This directive was issued barely 24 hours after Palestine’s president, Mahmoud Abbas, and several allies, and adversaries alike, rejected Trump’s request to take charge of the region.
Katz, who disclosed this through a post on his social media handle Thursday, welcomed the US president’s “bold initiative”, saying it could “support long-term reconstruction efforts in a demilitarized, threat-free Gaza after Hamas”.
“We have instructed the Israeli military to “prepare a plan that will allow any resident of Gaza who wishes to leave to do so, to any country willing to receive them. The plan will include exit options via land crossings, as well as special arrangements for departure by sea and air,” he said.
“Countries such as Spain, Ireland, Norway, and others, which have falsely accused Israel over its actions in Gaza, are legally obligated to allow Gazans to enter their territory. Their hypocrisy will be exposed if they refuse,” he threatened.
” Hamas is preventing people from leaving Gaza, they should have “the right to freedom of movement and migration” he added.
In response, Hamas, which is proscribed as a terrorist organization by Israel, the US, the UK, and other countries, said Trump’s plan was “absurd” and would “only put oil on the fire” in the region.
One of its officials, Basem Naim accused Katz of trying to cover up for “a state that has failed to achieve any of its objectives in the war on Gaza” and said Palestinians would refuse to leave.
Similarly, the spokesman for the Palestinian presidency, Nabil Abu Rudeineh also said the Palestinians would “not give up an inch of their land”, whether in Gaza or the occupied West Bank.
“The Palestinian people and their leadership will not allow the repetition of the catastrophes of 1948 and 1967, and will thwart any plan aimed at liquidating their just cause through investment projects whose place is neither in Palestine nor on its land.”
The 1948 “Nakba”, which means “catastrophe” in Arabic, saw hundreds of thousands of Palestinians flee or driven from their homes before and during the war that followed the creation of the State of Israel.
According to the United Nations, many of those refugees ended up in Gaza, where they and their descendants make up three-quarters of the population. Another 900,000 registered refugees live in the West Bank, which Israel occupied in the 1967 Middle East war along with Gaza, while 3.4 million others live in Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon.
Israel unilaterally withdrew its troops and settlers from Gaza in 2005, though it retained control of its shared border, airspace, and shoreline, giving it effective control of the movement of people and goods. The UN still regards Gaza as Israeli-occupied territory because of the level of control Israel has.
Also on 7 October 2023, the Israeli military launched a campaign to destroy Hamas in response to an unprecedented cross-border attack, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 were taken hostage.
More than 47,550 people have been killed and 111,600 injured in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.
Most of Gaza’s population has also been displaced multiple times and almost 70% of its buildings are estimated to be destroyed or damaged.
