Main events on April 7th
- Israeli forces have killed at least 59 Palestinians in Gaza since the early hours of the morning and displaced more than 400,000 people since ending the ceasefire on March 18.
- US President Donald Trump hosts Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House, and says he would like to see the war stop and that it will happen “in the not too distant future”. The pair also discuss Trump’s plan to forcibly displace Gaza’s entire population.
- The heads of six United Nations agencies have called for an urgent renewal of the ceasefire in Gaza, saying the world is witnessing acts of war “that show an utter disregard for human life”.
- Palestinians across occupied East Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank have held a general strike in solidarity with Gaza, closing shops, businesses and government offices in protest against Israel’s mass killings.
- The leaders of Egypt, France and Jordan have met in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, to discuss the ceasefire in Gaza and the release of the Israeli captives held there.
- Yemen’s Houthis claim an attack on Israeli and US warships in the Red Sea as United States forces continue near-daily attacks on the impoverished country.
Trump, Netanyahu discuss expelling Palestinians from Gaza
The meeting between the US president and the Israeli prime minister didn’t conclude with any announcements, not on tariffs, not on Iran and also not on the Gaza ceasefire and the deal to get out the Israeli captives.
This is sure to invite a lot of reactions domestically in Israel.
But the other piece of conversation that will definitely catch the attention of Netanyahu’s base and of Palestinians is the conversation between Trump and Netanyahu on expelling Palestinians from Gaza.
Trump mentioned Gaza, said that he doesn’t understand why Israel gave up that territory to begin with – something, of course, that legal scholars would dispute. And then he went on to say that it would be a very good thing if the US were to take over and control Gaza.
For his part, Netanyahu spoke about his supposed conversations with leaders of countries who were willing to take Palestinians, if they had the freedom to exercise a choice of where they wanted to go.
Of course, we know already that Palestinians do not want to leave Gaza, but they do want the war to end, and legal scholars have already said that plan is tantamount to ethnic cleansing.
Trump, Netanyahu responsible for ‘making Gaza unliveable’
Omar Baddar, a Palestinian-American political analyst, says Trump and Netanyahu are doubling down on forcibly removing Palestinians from Gaza despite speculation the plan had been abandoned.
He told Al Jazeera that the meeting between the two leaders was “utterly contemptible” and demonstrated that “for the US, Israel is a nation that is above the rules and above the law”.
Baddar blamed Trump and Netanyahu for “making Gaza unliveable”. “They are talking about it being a dangerous place, but it’s only dangerous because they insist on bombing and destroying it, making it unfit for human life,” he said.
“Anytime you destroy a place’s ability to sustain life, and then you give people a choice to either stay and die or leave, by no definition is that voluntary relocation. It is obviously violent ethnic cleansing and displacement is what we’re witnessing, and it’s received precisely with the contempt that it deserves from the Palestinian-American community, from the Palestinian community abroad, throughout the world.”
An aerial view of hundreds of Palestinians in the Tal al-Hawa neighbourhood breaking their fast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and sharing an iftar meal at a large table set amidst the rubble in the ruined streets of Gaza City, Gaza on March 09
