Ben-Gvir Publishes Plan to Remove All Palestinians From Gaza
Israel’s national security minister presented a 20-page “National Work Plan for Voluntary Emigration”: 250,000 Palestinians removed in the first year, the rest of Gaza’s two million over six. “It’s realistic,” Itamar Ben-Gvir said, claiming unnamed countries were “ready”, and demanding “a ministry in charge of emigration” in the next government. Forced displacement in occupied territory is a war crime under the Geneva conventions. Mr Netanyahu, visiting Gaza on Wednesday: “We are not withdrawing… And there is still more to come.”
Five weeks from an Israeli election, the far right has converted a slogan into a planning document with annual targets — and the significance is less the document than the drift it measures: expulsion talk has moved in eighteen months from the movement’s fringe to a minister’s podium, while the army’s own generals put Israeli control of the strip at 65% against the 53% the ceasefire agreed. “Voluntary” is carrying impossible weight in a territory whose population is besieged, bombed and hungry; the Geneva conventions use a shorter word. The plan’s real audience is domestic — Jewish Power polls near seven seats and needs every one — but campaign promises about ethnic transfer have a way of becoming coalition terms. Watch Washington’s response; the ceasefire’s 20-point plan says no one will be forced to leave, and someone must soon say whether that clause still stands.