Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a meeting of his Likud party on Monday that he’s working to bring about the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza and looking for countries willing to “absorb” them, Israel Hayom reported.
“Our problem is countries that are ready to absorb them, and we are working on it,” Netanyahu said. His comments are the latest sign that Israel’s ultimate goal is to cleanse Gaza of its 2.3 million Palestinian residents.
Netanyahu said the world is “already discussing the possibilities of voluntary immigration” and pointed to comments from former US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley, who is currently running for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. Haley said last week that Palestinians in Gaza should migrate to “pro-Hamas” countries.
Netanyahu said that a team must be set up to “ensure that those who want to leave Gaza to a third country can do so. It needs to be settled. It has strategic importance for the day after the war.”
Last month, Israeli Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel penned an op-ed for The Jerusalem Post calling for the “voluntary resettlement” of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip to other countries around the world. Two members of the Israeli Knesset wrote a similar op-ed for The Wall Street Journal that said Western nations should accept Palestinian refugees.
While Netanyahu and other Israeli officials have framed the plan as “voluntary resettlement,” Israel’s brutal campaign in Gaza is making much of the enclave uninhabitable. About 90% of Gaza’s population has already been internally displaced.
A leaked document drafted by Gamliel’s Intelligence Ministry said pushing all 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza into Egypt was the ideal scenario for the Israeli government. But Egypt has refused to take in any Palestinian refugees, forcing Israeli officials to look elsewhere to facilitate their planned ethnic cleansing.
Source: AntiWar.
