Israel’s far right pushes mass removal of Palestinians from Gaza

Gaza: Israeli far-right ministers have intensified calls for the mass removal of Palestinians from Gaza, as displacement, demolitions and deadly attacks continue across the besieged territory and the occupied West Bank, a report by Al Jazeera said.

Defence Minister Israel Katz told a conference on Wednesday that removing Palestinians from Gaza was the only viable solution and said Israel was prepared to pursue the move through various means. He also claimed that US President Donald Trump had frozen, rather than abandoned, his support for the proposal.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir separately unveiled a seven-year initiative, dubbed “Disengagement 710”, aimed at removing Gaza’s nearly two million residents under the label of voluntary emigration. He said that if re-elected, he would create a Migration Ministry to carry out the policy.

The US State Department said Washington opposed any plan involving forced displacement, expulsion or mandatory transfer of Gaza’s population, but did not directly condemn the proposals by Katz or Ben-Gvir.

Meanwhile, Israeli military operations have continued to claim Palestinian lives. A special forces raid near Gaza City’s American Hospital on Tuesday killed at least four Palestinians, including two children and a woman, while Moin al-Arabeed, whom Israel identified as Hamas’s internal security chief, was captured.

A drone strike killed a child in Jabalia refugee camp on Wednesday, while an attack on a tent in Khan Younis killed another person. On Thursday, two Palestinians, including a 13-year-old, were shot dead near Beit Lahia after Israel said they had entered an Israeli-controlled zone.

Further strikes killed Palestinians in Gaza City and Khan Younis over the weekend. Before dawn on Monday, at least five more people, including two children, were killed, among them three-year-old Saadi Ghalia, when an artillery shell struck a school sheltering displaced people in Deir el-Balah.