US rejects Israeli calls to remove Palestinians from Gaza
Photo: REUTERS
United States rejected demands from high-ranking Israeli officials to remove the Palestinian population from Gaza.
When questioned about the US State Department about Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz’s call to depopulate Gaza as the sole “solution” to the crisis, the department reaffirmed Washington’s commitment to President Donald Trump’s 20-point “peace plan” that established the “ceasefire” last year.
A State Department spokesperson told Al Jazeera in a statement on Friday, “As explicitly stated in Point 12 of the President’s plan: ‘No one will be forced to leave Gaza and those who wish to leave will be free to do so and free to return. We will encourage people to stay and offer them the opportunity to build a better Gaza’.”
The spokesperson said, “The United States does not support any plan or proposal for the forced displacement, expulsion, or mandatory transfer of the population of Gaza.”
Katz asserted that Trump merely “froze” - and did not cancel - his support for depopulating the territory, a strategy that human rights advocates argue would amount to ethnic cleansing. On Wednesday, Katz added, “In the end, there is no real solution for Gaza without this migration,” using the word “migration” as a euphemism to describe the removal of Palestinians.
Katz remarked that the Israeli government stands prepared to extract Palestinians from Gaza “by sea, by air and by any means to do it,” noting that officials discuss the idea “all the time”.
The following day, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir backed Katz’s claims. Ben-Gvir declared, “Instead of illusions of peace now, we need actions of emigration now,” adding, “Instead of [Palestinians] digging tunnels, it’s time to pack suitcases.”
Meanwhile, Arab nations, including key US allies, forcefully rejected any initiatives to evict Palestinians from their land. White House directed Al Jazeera to a social media post published by Trump in August, which celebrated an agreement to disarm Hamas.
That specific agreement outlines a gradual Israeli military withdrawal from Gaza and a halt to the near-daily, fatal attacks on the territory. However, Israel dismissed the proposal, asserting that it would grant no concessions until Gaza undergoes complete demilitarization.
Last year, Trump sparked global outrage when he originally proposed ethnically cleansing Gaza - which houses around two million people - to transform the enclave into “the Riviera of the Middle East,” though he seemingly abandoned the idea later in 2025 upon presenting his 20-point plan.
Although both Hamas and Israel accepted Trump’s ceasefire agreement last October, Israel persisted with its bombardment of the Palestinian territory. Last month, US envoy and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner met with Hamas officials and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to help resolve the deadlock.
However, Kushner seemingly aligned with the Israeli government’s stance, declaring that reconstruction efforts in Gaza would not begin until Hamas completely disarms, while highlighting that the United States would not “restrict Israel’s right to defend itself” amid ongoing Israeli military strikes.
Despite Hamas agreeing to surrender its weaponry, negotiators made minimal progress on Trump’s “ceasefire” plan. The persistent demands by Israeli officials to relocate Palestinians out of Gaza threaten to further complicate the negotiations.
State Department told Al Jazeera that, “Any movement must be strictly voluntary and our focus remains on the demilitarisation, stabilisation and redevelopment of Gaza for the benefit of its residents.”
They added, “Furthermore, Point 20 commits the United States to establishing a dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians to agree on a political horizon for peaceful and prosperous coexistence.”
US provided Israel with more than $25 billion since Israel launched its genocidal war in Gaza in October 2023. Yousef Munayyer, director of the Palestine/Israel program at the Arab Center Washington, DC, explained that negotiators have made no progress on peace because Israelis have “come to the conclusion that there cannot be coexistence in this space with Palestinians.”
He cautioned that this campaign to ethnically cleanse Palestinians extends beyond Gaza to the West Bank and even Palestinian citizens of Israel.
Munayyer told Al Jazeera, “They don’t want to live with Palestinians of any form.” He warned, “They cannot wrap their heads around any sort of solution to the fundamental problem that they have - which is that they’ve antagonised an entire native population by imposing themselves on them - other than through the elimination of that population.”
Source: Al Jazeera (adapted)
