Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich once again spoke of his desire for “voluntary emigration” to Gaza, saying on Monday he wanted to halve the local Palestinian population and “conquer” the territory.
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Monday, November 25, that Israel should “conquer” the Gaza Strip and halve the local Palestinian population through “voluntary emigration.”
Speaking Monday evening at a conference organized by the Yesha Council, an organization representing settlers in the occupied West Bank, Bezalel Smotrich declared that “we can and we must conquer the Gaza Strip, we must not be afraid of this word”.
“There is no doubt that in Gaza, with the encouragement of voluntary emigration, there exists here, in my opinion, a unique opportunity which is opening up with the new administration (Trump),” added the minister, head of the far-right “Religious Zionism” party. “We can create a situation in which, within two years, the population of Gaza will be reduced by half,” said Bezalel Smotrich.
Accusations of “ethnic cleansing”
On November 14, Human Rights Watch estimated that the repeated forced displacement of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip constituted a crime against humanity, accusations rejected as “totally false” by Israel.
Israel's “actions also appear to meet the definition of ethnic cleansing” in areas where the army has ordered the Palestinians to leave and where they will not be able to return, the NGO judged in a report.
“The words ‘ethnic cleansing’ are increasingly used to describe what is happening in the north of Gaza,” the head of European diplomacy Josep Borrell also declared on November 11 on X.
The United States has already condemned this project
The plans for a “voluntary transfer” of the Gazan population by Bezalel Smotrich and his colleague Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, caused an outcry in January.
“The United States rejects recent statements by Israeli Ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir advocating the relocation of Palestinians outside Gaza,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said at the time, calling these remarks “irresponsible”.
Despite its unilateral withdrawal in 2005, Israel is considered by international law to be the occupying power of the Gaza Strip, a territory conquered during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
Hamas, which took power there in 2007, accuses Israel of wanting to continue the war triggered by the October 7 attack to carry out a policy of “ethnic cleansing” in the Gaza Strip, where 2.4 million people live. Palestinians.
A “civil Jewish presence” mentioned by ministers
The possible return of a Jewish civilian presence in this territory was rejected by Benjamin Netanyahu, but it is mentioned by the most radical ministers of his government.
“It is obvious that in the end there will be a civilian Jewish presence in the Gaza Strip,” Bezalel Smotrich said during a meeting with right-wing activists in October.
The war, triggered by the Hamas attack in Israel on October 7, 2023, led to the death of 1,207 people on the Israeli side, the majority civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli figures and including the hostages. dead or killed in captivity in the Gaza Strip.
More than 44,249 Palestinians were killed in Israeli reprisals on the Gaza Strip, the majority civilians, according to data from the Hamas government's Health Ministry for Gaza, deemed reliable by the UN.
