Israel’s Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, advocated “encouraging the emigration” of some two million Palestinians who live in the Gaza Stripalmost the entire population of the enclave, and suggested the establishment of Jewish settlements in that place.
“We need to encourage migration from there. “If there were between 100,000 and 200,000 Arabs in the Strip and not two million, the whole conversation about the day after (the war) would be completely different,” Smotrich told Army Radio, in statements reported by the local press.
“They want to leave. “They have been living in a ghetto for 75 years and they are in need,” added the leader of the far-right Religious Zionism party, stressing: “I don’t think there is anyone in Israel who does not want to see settlements Jews everywhere,” referring to Gaza.
Since the outbreak of war between Israel and the Islamist group Hamas In October, neighboring Arab countries, such as Egypt and Jordan, have said on several occasions that they will not allow a new mass displacement of Palestinians, such as that which occurred with the creation of the State of Israel in 1948.
Smotrich, who lives in a neighborhood in West Bank occupied, is part of the most radical group of ministers in the government of Benjamin Netanyahuand promotes a policy of occupation and colonization of the palestinian territories.
Israel declared war on Hamas on October 7 after a massive attack by the Islamist group that included the launching of rockets and the simultaneous infiltration of some 3,000 militiamen who massacred some 1,200 people and kidnapped another 250 in towns near Hamas. Loop.
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Since then, and despite growing international opposition, the Israeli Army has maintained a strong offensive against the Palestinian enclave, where there are already more than 21,800 Palestinians dead and 56,400 injured, most of them children and women, in addition to another 7,000 missing under the rubble, according to the Ministry of Health of Loopunder the control of Hamas.
Arguing that Hamas uses civilian infrastructure for its military operations, Israel has bombed homes, schools, hospitals, temples, water treatment and supply plantsas well as telecommunications or energy supply facilities, leaving the enclave practically uninhabitable.
The war has also left some 1.9 million displaced in Gaza85 percent of the 2.2 million inhabitants of the Strip, who live in the middle of a unprecedented humanitarian crisis due to the collapse of hospitals, the outbreak of epidemics and the shortage of drinking water, food, medicine, electricity and fuel.
Netanyahu has repeatedly said that he will not allow the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), which governs small parts of the occupied West Bank, to have any type of control over Gaza in the postwar period, ensuring that this institution seeks the destruction of Israel, just as that Hamas, considered terroristr Israel, the United States and the European Union.
However, the United States, Israel’s main partner and so far the only country that does not advocate a ceasefire but has given weapons to the Israeli Army, wants the PNA to have a participation in Gaza and, in the long term, to have a two-state solution to the conflict.
Until now, Netanyahu He has not openly said that he seeks to displace the Gathazi, but he has not been clear about what the reality of the Strip will be once the war is over.
According to various analysts, Netanyahu will not be able to refuse the participation of the ANP in the new reality of Gaza, something unacceptable for his more radical partners, who could dissolve the government.
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International law considers that Gaza Strip, West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights They are territory occupied by Israel since 1967, when it fought the Six-Day War.
Furthermore, since Hamas forcibly took control of the Gaza Strip in 2007, Israel has maintained a military blockade by air, land and sea on the Palestinian enclave, causing its population to live in critical conditions.