“The 'voluntary' relocation of Palestinians from Gaza is slowly becoming an official Israeli government policy.” This is what the Times of Israel claims, according to which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition is secretly negotiating with Congo and other countries to accept thousands of immigrants Gaza leads. “Congo will be ready to accept migrants and we are in talks with others,” a security cabinet source told the newspaper.
Last Monday, Netanyahu announced at a Likud meeting that he was working to facilitate the voluntary migration of Gazans to other countries. “Our problem is to find countries willing to accept the residents of Gaza and we are working on it,” he explained. The prime minister thus reiterated the position of Likud MP Danny Danon, for whom “the world was already discussing the possibilities of voluntary immigration”, although the idea is categorically rejected, at least in words, by the international community. The far-right parties, the Religious Zionist Party and Otzma Yehudit, led by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, respectively, are the biggest supporters of the migration plans.
On Tuesday, the US State Department reprimanded Smotrich and Ben Gvir for supporting the resettlement of Palestinians outside Gaza, calling their rhetoric “inflammatory and irresponsible.” Smotrich dismissed the comments on Wednesday, arguing that more than 70% of Israelis support the idea of ”promoting voluntary immigration” because “two million people in Gaza wake up every morning and want to destroy the state of Israel.” Netanyahu's office has previously publicly insisted in statements that Smotrich and Ben Gvir do not represent government policy on the matter, despite his own comments last week in support of a population transfer. Several Likud ministers and lawmakers also spoke out in favor of it.
On Tuesday, Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel told the Times of Israel that “voluntary migration is the best and most realistic program for the day after the fighting ends.” Furthermore, during a Knesset conference examining the possibilities for post-war Gaza, Gamliel stated: “At the end of the war, the Hamas government will collapse.” There are no municipal authorities; The civilian population will be entirely dependent on humanitarian assistance. There will be no work and 60% of Gaza’s agricultural land will become security buffer zones.”
In November, he published an editorial in the Wall Street Journal outlining the Palestinian immigration plan for the first time and calling for “countries around the world to accept a limited number of migrants.”
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