Trump-proposed Palestinian expulsion ‘integrated into Israeli war plan’
Ever since US President Donald Trump in February spoke about the controversial, possible forcible relocation of Palestinians out of Gaza, the Israeli government has adopted it as policy.
We keep hearing intermittently from different Israeli officials about how the military operations, the attacks in Gaza, the starvation of the population all serve the ultimate goal of what Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz described as voluntary emigration.
Now what we heard in more detail from the Israeli minister is how this will be implemented – and according to the reporting, Israel Katz told journalists Israel plans to concentrate all of the population of Gaza – starting with 600,000 – on the ruins of Rafah and build a tent city.
Israeli forces will be screening who enters that tent city; once they enter, they won’t be able to leave, they will be there “deradicalised”, according to the Israeli minister and then allowed, pushed, encouraged, or nudged to leave the Gaza Strip, in implementation, according to him, of the Trump plan.
We also heard a reference to that by Netanyahu, when he met Trump overnight at the White House, with the Israeli prime minister saying Palestinians should be allowed to leave and that countries that want to see them have a better life should take them in.
So this is not really a new development in Israeli policy; it’s one that has been integrated into the Israeli war plan ever since February.
‘Nothing humane’ about plan to forcibly displace all in Gaza
Tamara al-Rifai, a spokesperson for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, or UNRWA, says there’s a “siege on the international humanitarian system” with the takeover of aid distribution by the Israel- and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
She said the reported forced displacement plan by Israel, backed by the United States, would create the “most overpopulated open-air prison in the world”. The proposal would see 2.1 million Palestinians herded into the “ruins of Rafah”.
“There’s nothing humanitarian or humane about seeking to confine the first 600,000 – but then the entirety of the population in Gaza – into a space that’s highly affected by the Israeli forces,” al-Rifai told Al Jazeera.
“It is not feasible given the level of destruction in Gaza. It is not feasible given the collapse of humanitarian action in Gaza. The [GHF] ‘mechanism’ is actually killing Gazans looking for food. We fear the worst may still come.”
