Palestinians should leave
Right-wing extremist minister wants to settle Israelis in the Gaza Strip
December 31, 2023, 12:07 p.m
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For months, Israel’s army has been dropping thousands of bombs on the Gaza Strip in an attempt to defeat Hamas. The right-wing extremist Finance Minister Smotrich apparently has another plan: If Israel proceeds correctly, Palestinians will emigrate, “and we will live in the Gaza Strip,” he says.
A far-right Israeli minister advocates for Israeli repopulation of the Gaza Strip after the war. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich told Israeli Army Radio that if Israel does things right, there will be an exodus of Palestinians “and we will live in the Gaza Strip.”
According to a post by the channel on the X platform, Smotrich also said: “We will not allow a situation in which two million people live there. If there are 100,000 to 200,000 Arabs living in Gaza, the discussion the day after will be completely different.” He added: “They want to leave, they have been living in a ghetto and in suffering for 75 years.”
Fearing a mass exodus, both Egypt and Jordan have refused to accept refugees from the embattled Gaza Strip. This also has to do with the fear that this could ultimately lead to permanent displacement. Smotrich is an advocate of the vision of “Greater Israel” and also advocates for annexation of the occupied West Bank.
The Palestinians, on the other hand, claim the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the Arab-dominated eastern part of Jerusalem as the territory of a future state of their own. Israel conquered the territories in 1967.
In 2005, Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip and evacuated more than 20 Israeli settlements. For the United Nations, the Gaza Strip remains Israeli-occupied territory because it controls all entrances except for one border crossing. Israel maintains that the occupation ended with the withdrawal in 2005.
USA against reoccupation
The USA is clearly against Israel reoccupying the Gaza Strip. They also reject the forced displacement of the 2.2 million Palestinians who live in the narrow coastal strip. The USA wants a reformed Palestinian Authority to take control of the Gaza Strip after the war. However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejects this. He wants the army to maintain security control even after the war and calls for the demilitarization of Gaza.
According to the health authority in Gaza, which is controlled by the Islamist Hamas, almost 21,700 people have been killed in the coastal area so far. The Gaza war was triggered by the worst massacre in Israel’s history, which terrorists from the Islamist Hamas and other groups carried out in Israel on October 7th.